


This Place Was Built To Keep Me Away

by elunablue



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Borderline Personality Disorder, Brotherly Bonding, Coming of Age, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Drug Addiction, Religious Themes, Self-Harm, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 77,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elunablue/pseuds/elunablue
Summary: After their failure to secure the money from Merrill’s safe, Sean and Daniel, alongside Finn, return to camp with none of the promises of a future they’d sought to find there. Having gotten away by the skin of their teeth and maybe even the grace of some merciful God, Sean and Daniel were now walking on eggshells with what felt like crosshairs on their hearts. But after what happened with Finn, Sean isn’t sure what he really wants anymore.He didn’t want it to be true that there was now another person he could love and lose. Didn’t want to accept that he almost felt happy for everything that’d happened, if only so he could meet Finn, someone who had become almost as important to him as his own brother. Didn’t want to think about his worries that he might some day have to choose between them.Didn’t want to think that he might not choose Daniel.





	1. Neon Gravestones

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate universe where Sean, Daniel, and Finn sneak into Merrill’s house to steal the money from the safe but ultimately find it empty, leaving them feeling lost and disappointed, but still together, and most importantly, still alive. Canon divergence in that Merrill doesn’t punish them for stealing as there was no money to steal, and they return to camp empty handed, but safe.

Everything had changed.

The finishing line wasn’t what it used to be, and Sean wasn’t even sure he could remember the starting place. Paces had taken on different speeds, such as they did; and he knew which way the wind blew.

The water he’d searched tirelessly for in the desert was only a mirage, but the home he'd found in the sand was one he'd never forget.

They were so stupid. So _fucking_ stupid. But when you’re in the middle of a stupid plan, it’s pretty hard to see how stupid it really is.

How in the world they thought they could just get in there, blow the door off of Merrill’s safe, and then get out just fine was completely beyond him. And Sean didn’t know why they hadn’t considered what came to be the major oversight that was using Daniel’s powers on the safe ending up sounding like a fucking bomb went off.

They were such fucking idiots.

And to make it worse, the safe was empty.

“What?” Finn said confusedly, reaching his hands into the safe to check past the haphazardly blasted-off door, as if the money was invisible and he could grab hold of it if only he just tried _really_ hard to will it into existence. “I don’t understand.”

“What the fuck is this?” A loud, authoritative voice blew off like a siren behind them, and Sean seized up, locked himself in place to the floor. He didn’t want to move, hoping that somehow he'd be able to hide if he could only stop existing right then and there where he stood. This would’ve been a great time for some miraculous discovery that he had superpowers too; invisibility, time travel, he'd take anything.

But no. God wasn’t that merciful.

“You’re holding me up, in my own goddamn house?” Merrill demanded in a pissed off voice. He lowered the gun once he saw who they were, as if his concern had dissipated once he'd seen that it was just these three clowns. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Merrill scanned over all three of them with a look of absolute annoyance on his face. In a way, this almost comforted Sean, because at worst it seemed like Merrill was only passively irritated at them and their antics, not violently so.

“Everybody _sit down_ ,” Merrill ordered in an angered tone, leaning his shotgun up against the wall beside the living room table.

The three of them followed his command as fast as they possibly could, not saying a single thing to one another and barely even breathing, as if a single breath would pop the fragile bubble of their safety in the intimidating presence of their boss.

“I'm not here to babysit you,” Merrill said, still standing where he'd been, but now facing the windows across the room. “I’m not your friend, I’m not you brother, and I most certainly am not your dad.” He gazed over all three of them from the corner of his eye, asserting himself firmly as the one in control of the room. Though then, he sighed. “But…I am _a_ dad," he said. "To an incredible little girl. And I want her to have a good life. I may not like what I do, but I have to do it. This isn’t some country farm where you can run 'round through the fields and not give a damn about anything.”

He turned to them finally and flattened his hands out on the table, looking strong and firm enough to smash straight through it to the floor.

“This is my _life_ ,” he said angrily, mostly towards Sean and Finn. “You three haven’t lived a third of the shit I have. You don’t know what you’re getting into here.”

“Merrill,” Sean spoke quick words of self-defense, “we’re really sorry, we won’t-”

“Sean, stop,” Finn said quietly but with direct resolution, communicating the futile effort of his friend's words, and Sean stopped talking.

Merrill burned his gaze into all three of them, particularly Sean, probably because he'd expected the most from him. Finn was a good worker, that much was true, but still just some druggie loser in Merrill’s eyes. Sean, however, was out of place here. A former city kid from a middle class family now roughing it out in an illegal trade business. And he had Daniel to set an example for.

Merrill sighed pointedly, seeming to want them to hear it. He pulled out the chair across from them, and sat down in it, tongue in cheek and lips pursed, irritated.

“If I weren’t a father,” Merrill spoke deliberately, letting them know exactly what he was about to lay out, “maybe I’d be angrier with you. I’m not angry. I’m pissed off. You have whole lives to live, and when you’re done here, you all get to walk away. But I don’t get to. I’m here because I have a family to protect. You come in here like you own the place, like you’re just taking a couple dollars from mommy’s purse like it’s no big deal. It is a _fucking_ big deal. I need that money to pay off the kind of people that kill shits like you on the spot.”

Sean sunk guiltily in his seat, not able to match Merrill’s eyes, like he’d be turned to stone if he did. He couldn’t handle the gaze of punishment that came from adults.

“But then I saw him.” Merrill flicked his eyes deliberately over to Daniel, and Sean felt ashamed. “And I just…thought about my daughter. How much it’d hurt me if I wasn’t there to take care of her.”

Sean stared still at the table, wishing he could vanish into thin air, wishing he could take it all back. It was one of those choices that you would give absolutely anything to have not made, because it makes you remember all at once how good you had it before, like when you get sick and then realize how much you took being healthy for granted. One fucking mistake.

“You’re a bunch of screw ups…” Merrill said, and then sighed disappointedly. “But so was I, at your age. And I’m not gonna be the one that takes that away. I’m not gonna be the one that takes away the one person Daniel has.”

Sean’s head shot up in surprise, his mouth slightly open. He looked to Daniel, then back to Merrill, and tried to quickly scrounge up words of thanks.

“Thank you, sir,” Sean said in a voice like he hadn’t spoken in years, bowing his head slightly. He’d never been so relieved in his entire life. Like the rush of adrenaline that washes over you when you miss a step on the staircase, or almost drop something breakable.

It seemed the talk was over, as Merrill was just looking down at his clasped hands on the table, silently dismissing them. Sean stood first, then patted Daniel on the back to motion for him to follow. Finn did so as well. They all pushed in their chairs carefully, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

They moved towards the door quickly, trying to be anywhere but there as fast as humanly possible. But then Merrill spoke again, and they stopped.

“I expect to see you all at work,” Merrill said, and Sean turned to see him still looking down at his clasped hands in thought. “First thing in the morning.”

“Really?” Sean asked, perking up slightly. “We can have our jobs back?”

“I’m giving you one chance,” Merrill said, holding up his finger to show it. “For Daniel.”

“Now get the fuck out of my house.”

 

None of them spoke on the way back.

Not even Daniel.

There was no room for jokes when the tension of their mistakes was already filling the air in their lungs and bloating them up like they were full of blood.

Somehow they all knew they’d really stepped in it this time. And neither Sean nor Daniel had ever been involved in something so immediately dangerous and very, very _real_.

Stealing from a gas station or pocketing spare change from the swear jar was nothing like trying to rob thousands from somebody who really didn’t care if they ended up dead or alive.

“You are such a fuckass, Finn,” Cassidy yelled out to them as they approached the camp from the direction of Big Joe’s house. Sean cringed. She got right up to Finn and pushed him on the shoulders a little bit, not violently, but enough to get her message across. 

“I was so goddamn scared,” she said with a conflicted shake of her head, then looked quickly to and from all three of them like she couldn’t decide who to be the maddest at. “Don’t you _ever_ do that to us again, do you hear me?”

She had her finger pointed right into the center of Finn’s chest to make good and well sure that he knew she meant business, like her words would travel through her hand into his body like some unbreakable vow.

And then she hugged him.

“It’s too easy to say a paper umbrella will save you if it’s never rained,” she said into his chest. “You’re gonna be the death of yourself, and so many other people if you don’t cut it out.”

She pulled away and looked right up at him again, breaking into his personal space to make sure he heard her just like how she wanted him to. “If you get either of these boys into trouble, I’ll kill you myself.”

Sean knew she didn’t mean it the way she said it, knew that she’d really just been so hurt that she couldn’t express it any other way. He’d never had friends like that before. Friends that would call you out when you did something _really_ bad, instead of just blindly supporting you.

“And you…” she stepped back to go over to Sean, giving him his just dues as well. He wasn’t out of the doghouse yet.

“How could you let Daniel do something so dangerous? Have you not learned anything from what’s happened to you? You’re wanted across the country, Sean, and you’re gonna do what? Just become some…some petty criminal? What a great example that sets.”

“I know I fucked up,” Sean said sheepishly. “I don’t have an excuse.”

“No,” Cassidy said, shaking her head almost condescendingly. “You don’t.”

He knew she was right.

Sean looked away from her, and then took a step back. He looked over at Daniel to see the boy just standing there frozen and barely moving. Finn lingered awkwardly where he’d stood before.

“C’mon, Daniel,” Sean said, “Let’s go.”

But Daniel didn’t move.

“No…I don’t,” Daniel stuttered, “I don’t want to be with you right now, Sean.”

Sean opened his mouth to speak a defense, but he had none. If he were Daniel, he wouldn’t want to be near himself either. He couldn’t blame him, not for this, and not for anything else. He’s just a kid. And Sean’s only been a terrible older brother so far.

“Daniel, let’s get you cleaned up,” Cassidy said comfortingly to him, kneeling down a bit and smiling wide with her gap-toothed mouth. She held out her right hand to Daniel and he accepted it, taking a vague last look back at Sean as they stepped away from the group and started on down the path.

Sean just watched in silence as she walked back to camp with the little brother who didn’t want to speak to him right now.

And he almost resented her for it.

 

Down at the lake, Sean and Finn lay together by the edge of the water, looking up at a sky that should’ve been full of stars, but wasn’t. It was clouded by the darkened masses of a hellish night. Sean wished he could see those stars up there, but he tried to tell himself that they were still there, even if he couldn’t see them.

“I’m from Illinois,” Finn told him, answering Sean’s question about where he'd come from. It held some sense of emptiness, as though Illinois was just some made-up place from a book. “I came from a…just a small town, nowhere important, I guess. Most people just cared about, like, walking their dogs and shit, or mowing their lawns. I wished I could’ve cared about that kinda stuff too, like, the little things.”

“I understand,” Sean said lamely, not knowing any other way to convey that he felt that way too.

“But with my dad, y’know?” Finn continued, speaking the word of ‘dad’ with the disdainful taste of memory. “We were always in some kinda shit with him. Oh well, it is what it is.”

Sean wanted to reach over to Finn, to touch him in some way that could take away all his pain, could remind him that someone really was there for him, and that he didn’t have to be alone. But he didn’t. Because he wasn’t sure what the two of them really were, or if he was allowed to share a touch like that, a brush of hands, a comforting embrace. Finn was never one to shy away from touches, in fact he was pretty physically affectionate most of the time, but Sean wasn’t. Sean was shy, and didn’t know how to show love like that.

“I’m really sorry, about that,” Sean said quietly, kind of barely getting it out fully because he felt like those words weren’t enough. “I know I’ve said it before, but, I wish I could do more than just say that I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Sean…I know you mean it.”

The conversation faded to a close, and Sean could feel the awkward silence settle down on them like a sheeted blanket from the sky. Or maybe it was just him. Finn never seemed awkward around him, not really.

Finn stood up, though, and Sean watched as he tottered over to the delicate white flowers near the lake, leaning down to get a good look at them. He reached out to touch them ever so slightly, just enough to feel them, but not enough to hurt them.

“I love this flower,” Finn said. “It’s called, uh…Queen Anne’s Lace, I think.”

Sean took that as an invitation to join him, so he stood from where he had been laying and walked over to see the flowers.

“They’re really pretty,” Sean agreed with an encouraging nod, and Finn’s eyes shot down away from Sean, biting his lip in thought.

“Can I ask you something?” Finn asked, looking back up to re-attain eye contact with the other beside him.

“Yeah?” Sean asked curiously, wondering about the sudden sense of apprehension in Finn’s words. Finn spoke with a sort of nonchalant bravado that made him seem jovial and joking most times, so without it, Sean always felt a bit like he was seeing Finn behind the metaphorical wallpaper he used to hide himself behind.

Finn took a moment to regain his thought, to find the right thing to say, and the two of them sat back down on the grass, like that would help ease the tension in the air.

Finn finally spoke.

“Do you know how many people are looking for you?”

Sean swallowed hard. He hadn’t been thinking about that much lately, and now here it was. Guess you really can’t run from your past forever. Not that it was the past since it was ongoing, but still, it was something he’d really rather not remember was his life.

“Not really,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to avoid the news completely for months.” He looked down at the ground for a moment, and then a thought occurred to him and he shot back up to Finn with a questioning expression. “Why, do you know something?”

“Sean…your case is international,” Finn said seriously. “A dead father, a dead cop, and two missing children that just disappeared into thin fucking air. Everybody is watching this case.”

Finn picked at the grass of the ground beneath him anxiously, and Sean was surprised to see him so uneased about it. He had no idea Finn was so concerned about them. He’d never really said so before.

“Maybe…maybe they won’t do anything to you,” Finn continued, nodding his head like he was trying to convince himself of this. “Maybe they just want to know that you two are safe.”

“Finn, no,” Sean said defensively, shaking his head. “We’re two Mexican boys on the run; they’ll find some way to blame us eventually.”

Finn reached up to the side of Sean’s face and just barely traced his fingers down the left side, fingers only lightly brushing down his skin and then being pulled away. It seemed Finn was trying to remind himself that Sean was really real.

“Sean, I just don’t know if that’s true,” he said, looking back at the ground, at his hands in the grass. “I get it. I really, really get it. But this case is bigger than just you, or Daniel, or any of us. You’re both underage and missing. It’s just too weird of a case to get pinned all on you. For all anybody knows, you could’ve been kidnapped or something.”

Sean didn’t know what to say. This was the first time he’d ever really been able to talk to someone about this who wasn’t Daniel. Being able to discuss what happened with someone who wasn’t involved was like explaining a phantom pain in your body to your doctor. You know it because you feel it, but you don’t know how to tell that to someone else.

“I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” Sean said, and he hadn’t meant it to sound as harsh as it ended up coming across. He regretted it immediately because Finn tensed beside him in abject rejection.

Finn stood from where they’d been sitting faster than Sean could beg him to stay, and he started off back to the trail to camp. He turned back to look at Sean as he was walking.

“I’ll…I’ll see you tomorrow, then…Sean,” Finn stepped backwards away slowly, his hands clasped in a kind of awkward hold. “I’m…really sorry about tonight. I just…I’m sorry.”

And before Sean could respond, Finn had turned around and walked briskly away, fading into the blackness of the trail back to camp, only briefly being illuminated by the lanterns spaced out every few feet along the pathway.

Sean wished he could’ve found the words to make Finn stay. To let Finn know that he didn’t blame him for any of this, not really.

But he couldn’t.

 

Back at camp, Sean returned to find that Finn had returned to his tent, with the zipper locked up tight, a small lantern lit inside, Finn’s moving silhouette shadowing through the canvas walls. Sean wished he could be there, in some way, but he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to go over there.

Sean felt badly that Finn was alone, not having anyone to comfort him. But he hoped that if Finn needed someone, if he needed help, he would’ve asked. Maybe it wasn’t true, but he had to convince himself he wasn’t not doing enough.

Cassidy sat with Daniel near the fire, seemingly waiting for Sean to approach them, as they were both looking over at him. The others had already returned to bed, Sean assumed, as none of them were around, save for Penny, who was milling around the kitchen area anxiously.

He approached them cautiously, worried he might trip a bomb off when he walked up, like he was about to be punished by a parent for fucking something up. Cassidy was a good friend, but she was firm, and she knew who she was more than anybody else here. And she didn’t put up with things she didn’t approve of.

“Hi, Sean,” Daniel said, having calmed down and returned to his usual Daniel tone, if not a bit tired.

“Hey, Daniel,” he said back, then shot his eyes to Cassidy, who was sending him a firm look with just her eyes. He pretended not to notice. “You okay?”

“Yeah…” Daniel said slowly, looking down at the ground. “I’m okay. Can we go to bed?”

“Of course, we can.” Sean mustered the best smile he could. “You got it.”

Daniel stood to wait for his brother by the edge of the campfire, and Cassidy crossed by the fire. Sean wondered if she was just going to walk away from him with no word, but instead she came right up to him, brushed closely to his left side, gripped his upper arm in warning, and spoke strongly to him, _just_ him.

“Don’t you hurt him,” she whispered firmly into his ear, then released her grip and walked away in the opposite direction.

Sean didn’t know if she meant Daniel…or Finn.

He didn’t want to.

Sean let it roll off his back, but it had shaken him. He knew that bringing Daniel into this was a completely stupid move, but he wasn’t thinking straight. He shouldn’t have let someone else get in between him and Daniel, shouldn’t have let someone else convince him to do something that put Daniel in so much danger.

Back inside their tent, Sean helped Daniel get into his pajamas, and then changed into his own. Daniel sat very still on his sleeping bag, staring at nothing in particular, gripping his pillow beside him. Sean didn’t know what he should say.

“What’re we gonna do now, Sean?” Daniel asked, and Sean felt bitten by the innocent taste of hopelessness in Daniel’s tone. Every moment, he felt like Daniel’s childhood was melting away like an ice cube left abandoned in the sun.

And it was all his fault.

“I think…” Sean started, and then exhaled the brutal tension infecting his body. “We just have to keep laying low, and figure it out together.”

“But I don’t want to do that anymore,” Daniel asserted, crossing his arms over his chest in a huff. “I don’t want to have to run anymore. I just want to go home.”

“I know you do, and I do too,” Sean said, swallowing back the thought of their dad that crossed his mind. “But we won’t be alone. We’ve got a great little family here, okay? And they all really care about us. We’re gonna get through it.”

“No more things like what we did tonight,” Daniel said, staring blankly at the blanketed floor of the tent.

In the pit of his core, Sean knew he’d really messed up this time. So far, nothing bad that’d happened to Daniel had come directly from Sean. But this time, it was his fault for thinking they could use Daniel’s powers for such selfish reasons.

Sean leaned over towards Daniel and carefully placed his hands on his brother’s hunched shoulders. Daniel looked up at him, and Sean secured pointed eye contact.

“I _promise_ we won’t,” Sean said firmly, to make sure that Daniel believed him when he said it. “This was all…a _really_ bad idea. But, we’re okay, and that’s what matters. We’re still together.”

They stayed still for a beat, both of them taking in what Sean had said. And then Daniel threw himself into Sean's chest, and Sean held him.

“I love you, Sean.”

“I love you too, Daniel…” he whispered softly, stroking the back of Daniel’s hair. “I love you too.”

Though he'd promised it, he wasn’t sure how much was actually within his control. Hard to promise he can change the rain when he knows they won’t have a home to weather the storm.

Daniel moved his head back to look up at Sean, with a permanent sadness in them, spilled like a stain that would never dry.

“Sean, I don’t want to end up in a shelter again,” he said. “I hated it there.”

“We won’t, enano. I’ll figure it out. I don’t want you to worry it about it, though, I’m gonna take care of it.”

Daniel pulled away suddenly, like all the happiness in their tent had suddenly been swept away with a drafty wind. Sean felt a bitter sense of loneliness sink into his stomach, and for the briefest moment, he felt tense hate brush through the air.

“What’s wrong, Daniel? I can tell you’re thinking something, what is it?”

Daniel said nothing in response to Sean, though remained discomforted.

Beside him, Daniel began to dig into his backpack with the kind of solemn resolve of someone digging up the body of their best friend. He pulled from it a small notebook they’d picked up for him a little while ago. He turned to a page a little way in, and then handed it to Sean, still saying nothing, offering the note page as his voice instead.

Sean took the notebook apprehensively, his eyes shooting from concern at Daniel’s downtrodden face to the few words written on the page in scribbled black lead.

_I am a hateful reflection of a loving God._

Sean choked. Goosebumps washed over the surface of his skin in the ripples of a storm, like raindrops shooting icily and sharp across a metal roof. There were no words in the English or Spanish language that he knew to be able to process what Daniel had written. No words in any language that could encapsulate the kind of cosmic understanding Daniel seemed to be searching for.

Daniel was completely alone. And for the first time, Sean realized it with a broken heart that it was true. It didn’t matter if his powers were some gift from God, or a radioactive accident, or some other reason. Daniel felt alone. Lonely. Terrified. And that hurt more than anything else.

“Is this…how you really feel?”

“I don’t want this,” Daniel choked out with but a breath of a whisper. “I just want it to end.”

“Daniel,” Sean said, his voice cracking slightly as he felt tears begin to grow across the bottoms of his eyes. His hands shook, and he couldn’t get a control on normal breathing.

Nothing else existed outside this tent. For all it mattered, this felt like the whole world. Everything else melted away, melted together…never existed.

Small world.

“I’m so scared, Sean. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Daniel, okay? I’m gonna take care of you.”

“Am I being punished?”

“Absolutely not. Never say that. You are the least deserving person in the world of this shit, and I…I’m never gonna let _anyone_ hurt you, ever again.”

“What would you do, to save me?” Daniel asked, and Sean swallowed harshly on a life of memories they would never again get back.

He stared behind Daniel at the wall of the tent with sorrow, with rage, with hate…with love. He looked to the picture of their father, and he felt his soul hollow out from his body and sink beneath the ground.

“Whatever I had to.”

It was a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it to the end, thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I have about five chapters already lined up, just need to put on the finishing touches. This _is_ a Sean/Finn story, so buckle in, it's coming and it'll build slowly over time. The title of this chapter, Neon Gravestones, comes from a Twenty One Pilots song off their new album, the lyrics of which I feel really fit the tone of Life is Strange 2, particularly Sean. I also think he'd be into them as a band.


	2. To Be Alone With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean begins to wonder if Finn is pulling away from him after the incident with their failed heist, and worries that their relationship might've been damaged by what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story begins, naturally, after Sean and Finn's kiss by the camp that happened in game, so when it's referred to, that's the scene I'm recalling, just to clarify.

Worked sucked the next morning, because of course it did. Not that he should’ve expected it to be sunshine and lollipops after they’d all nearly gotten a cap busted in their asses the night prior for pulling a stunt like they had.

Sean’s hands were blistered up after working in the nettle field for hours, dawn til dusk, but he couldn’t think about how his own skin felt when he needed to be there for Daniel, who was having a more difficult time coping with the sting. Sean held Daniel's smaller hands gently in his own, and blew cold air onto the pain of the little cuts and burns.

He was so little. So young. And he didn’t deserve a single second of the time they had to work out on this farm, planting and sewing for so many hours that dragged on like decades. Sean wished he could just take it all away. What he wouldn’t give for that boy.

“I need a bath,” Daniel said, hopping off the back of Big Joe’s truck as they returned after the long day, rubbing at his hands still. They were the last two left on the truck, the others having already gone on ahead.

“I think we _all_ need a bath,” Sean said with a short laugh, following right behind him and jumping down onto the dirt of the ground. He brushed his hands off on his pants, then headed off to follow his little brother.

“Sean?” Daniel asked, bouncing a little as he pointed towards camp. “Can I go down to the lake with Cassidy tonight? She was going with Penny and they asked me if I wanted to come with them.”

“Sure, enano.” Sean ruffled the hair on Daniel’s head and smiled at him. “That sounds like fun. You sure you’ll be okay without me there?”

“Totally,” Daniel said coolly. “I’ll be okay. Thank you for asking, though, to make sure.”

Back at camp, Sean saw Daniel off to the beach with Cassidy and Penny, the two of them reassuring that he’d be in good hands and walking with him between them as they went, each holding one of his hands and swinging him between them.

Sean didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky with this place, with these people.

“Sean, could I, uh…could we talk?”

Sean jumped slightly at the surprise of being spoken to all of a sudden by someone standing behind him.

He knew by the sound of their voice that it was Finn. They hadn’t spoken since the night before, down by the lake. Finn avoided him all day at work, and Sean was worried that whatever had been between them was over.

“Sure,” Sean said quietly, a bit lost for breath at the sudden anticipation of this conversation. “You wanna come to my tent? At least it’ll be private, kinda.”

“Yeah, yeah that sounds really nice,” Finn said with a forced kind of smile, hiding the actual sadness behind his eyes. “Thank you, Sean.”

Finn had only seen the inside of Sean and Daniel’s tent a few times, here and there, but had never come fully inside like this. It was more intimate than Sean had expected, and suddenly the space felt a whole lot smaller than it normally did when it was just Daniel and himself. For obvious reasons like Finn being bigger than Daniel, of course, but also just because it was a totally different dynamic. Being there with his little brother was nothing like this. He was nervous.

Once they were inside, Finn lay backwards onto Sean’s sleeping bag, arms spread out to his sides, eyes closed. “I could definitely just fall asleep like this.”

He pulled his hands up to place them loosely on his chest, reopening his eyes again, though they still lingered shut somewhat in a tired, heavy gaze up to the top of the tent but looking at nothing much in particular.

“I bet we all could,” Sean agreed, climbing into the tent and then turning to secure it closed by zipping it shut. He left it open a tiny bit at the very bottom, and then turned back to Finn and sat down near him, to his left but across the tent.  

“So, how is he?” Finn asked concernedly, turning his head to look over at where Sean was.

“We’ll manage,” Sean said with a careful nod, a relieved sigh. “He’s doing better, I think, now that he’s had a good night’s sleep and work is over for the day. I know he’s hurting, but we’re gonna figure it out, and get through it. Not much else we can really do than just…push on.”

“That’s good,” Finn agreed with a nod of his own. “He deserves all the love you give him. He’s really lucky to have you. I am too.”

Sean nodded bashfully, then leaned over to grab his backpack to have something to fidget with. He double and triple checked the money he had, trying to be as sure as he could that it was still there, that it was really real, and that it was safe. He was so worried he’d wake up one day and everything would be out of his control. Like he’d wake up to find himself sleeping on a park bench somewhere, not a penny to his name. Wake up to find Daniel gone without a trace.

End up dead in a ditch somewhere.

He needed a distraction. His head was playing tricks on him again, those negative voices in his mind bubbling up like a sickness in his throat.

“And, how are you?” Sean asked unsurely, angling his body to face Finn and awkwardly gripping the bag beside him. “Um…like…are you okay?”

“Hmph,” Finn mused humorously, giving Sean a teasing look of raised eyebrows. “Way to woo a guy.”

“Hey,” Sean said back to him playfully, “I’m trying my best. I’ve never like, dated anybody.” He stopped himself suddenly, nervously adding, “Wait, are we dating? I mean…shit…sorry…I didn’t mean it like, like _that_. Just…sorry.”

“You’re so cute,” Finn teased, and Sean looked down at the worn sleeping bag beneath his feet, cheeks flushed pink.

“Sorry,” Sean said quietly, and Finn chuckled.

“And stop saying sorry so much,” he said softly. “I mean it’s adorable, but, you make me feel like I’m constantly offending.”

“Sorry, I won’t – sorry, oh wait, dang it, this is hard.” Sean took a deep breath and let it out with a slight laugh at his own expense. “I guess it’s just my natural reflex to apologize first, even if I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Finn smiled to himself like he knew something Sean didn’t, and Sean gave him a curious look in question of this.

“You’re like a…baby deer lost in the woods and I’m just some mangy fox or something.”

Though Finn’s words seemed mostly to have been intended as a joke, Sean was concerned by them. The casual self-deprecation behind a lot of what Finn always said was beginning to worry him, now that he’d known Finn for a short while and had gotten to understand him better.

“Are you okay?” Sean asked carefully, not sure how else to go about asking what he really wanted to. He was too shy to address hard issues with a full sense of vulnerable willingness.

“Are we cool?” Finn asked suddenly, staring straight up at the top of the tent blankly, and Sean was taken aback. “Like…um…is this a problem?”

Sean furrowed his brow in a sort of sudden solemn confusion, and Finn seemed frustrated with his own self for having brought it up.

“What do you mean?” Sean asked, moving a bit closer next to Finn, worried concern laced in his words. He sat close enough to be comforting, but not so close as to be intrusive on Finn’s personal space.

“I mean…” Finn sighed, not finishing his statement. He sat up and leaned his forearms onto his knees, bracing himself in a hunched way to avoid Sean’s gaze. “I mean…are you really okay, with someone like me?”

“Someone really awesome and cool and interesting?” Sean joked, but Finn didn’t react, not even with a little smile.

“I mean it,” Finn said seriously, and Sean found himself momentarily speechless that Finn hadn’t joked back at him. Finn didn’t get serious that often. He was a pretty open person, but he kept his real secrets to himself. The best way to protect himself seemed to be convincing people that they knew him, so they wouldn’t ask the questions that would _really_ hurt.

Finn may wear his heart on his sleeve but he keeps the skeletons in his closet locked tightly away. Threw them in a hole and then threw away the hole.

“Your brother is the most important thing in the world,” Finn said, still just staring straight down like the ground was telling him what words to fill his mouth with. “You need to keep him safe. I don’t care what you think of me, because Daniel is way more important than I’ll ever be.”

“Don’t say that, Finn. Don’t put yourself down like that.”

“And why not? You have with Daniel what I wished I could’ve had with my brothers. I had three of them and it was a complete three-for-three miss. None of them could save me, and I couldn’t save them. What you and Daniel have, I can’t touch it.”

“Finn, you’re important to me too. I can care about more than one person at a time,” Sean tried to offer as reassurance, but Finn wasn’t having it.

“You’re two of the most wanted people in the country right now,” Finn said. “And the fact that you haven’t been caught yet blows me away. I don’t want my being around to jeopardize you and Daniel’s, like, safety. I’m just nobody.”

“You’re not nobody. You’re Finn.”

“Finn. Hmph. And what a great life being Finn has been.”

“Come on, there’s tons of awesome Finns out there," Sean offered. "Huckleberry Finn. Finn from _Adventure Time._ I think the main goldfish for goldfish crackers is named Finn.”

“So, my choices are a poor, motherless teenager, a cartoon character whose best friend is a dog, and a goldfish cracker? I’m thinking maybe the first one hits a little too close to home.”

“Well, if you’re Huckleberry Finn, then I’ll be Tom Sawyer,” Sean said. “And we’ll go on awesome adventures together.”

“Well I am quite the vagabond of a pariah, if I do say so myself.” Finn perked up a little, and he gave a little smile. Small steps. “Alright, _Sean Sawyer_. It’s you and I against the world. Plus, Daniel, of course.”

“Of course,” Sean agreed with a toothy smile. “You and me against the world.” And then he held up his right hand in an anticipatory fist.

“A fist bump?” Finn asked with a short laugh, staring down at Sean’s awaiting hand. “You’re really going in for a fist bump right now?”

“Sorry,” Sean conceded with a blush, putting both his hands up in defense. “I didn’t want to push my boundaries.”

“Just lay with me here,” Finn said, and Sean swallowed in anticipation. He’d never been so close to someone before, not like this. Not in a… _romantic_ , kind of way.

But he did so, laying down on his right side to the left of Finn, using his arm beneath his head like a pillow to keep it propped. Their bodies were pressed together, and it was a comfortable closeness.

But that apparently wasn’t close enough, because Finn turned over onto his own side and kind of gently nudged his way into Sean’s arms. Sean was grateful Finn was a little forward, because he sure as well wasn’t. They’d be in a geriatric ward before Sean ever made a move.

“Can I say something, kinda intense?” Finn asked quietly.

Sean worried what Finn might say, but he swallowed his concern and nodded apprehensively beside the other boy’s head. He feared if he spoke, Finn might get scared off from saying what he was about to, so he kept quiet, but tightened his arms around him to reassure and encourage him to continue.

“You’ve kinda saved me,” Finn admitted, and Sean let out a slight sigh of relief that Finn hadn’t said something bad. “You were a miracle.”

Sean didn’t know how to respond to that, because that was quite the thing to say, a pretty heavy responsibility he hadn’t even known he’d taken on. But somehow, Finn made it seem so freeing to make miracles happen here.

“I’m glad there wasn’t any money in the safe,” Finn confessed quietly, his words spoken just so only the two of them could hear.

Sean rubbed his hand over Finn’s back comfortingly, nodding his head slowly.

“Me too,” he said, unconsciously holding Finn closer to him, like he’d fade away otherwise. “Me too.”

Finn pulled away suddenly, and Sean couldn’t help but be a little disappointed at the loss of their comforting embrace.

“So, now that all the mushy-gooey stuff is out of the way,” Finn said, back to his usual tone. “You wanna go down to the lake, with the others? I need a fucking break after everything.”

“Hell yeah,” Sean said with a laugh. His first breath of relief all day. “Let’s do it.”

 

Days continued on like normal, as they always did out here. Just tethered to a feeling of abject futility that couldn’t be washed away, like the days passed, but not really. Every day was the same thing, just going through the motions and trying to scrape by.

It took three days after their incident at Merrill’s house for Cassidy to even speak to Sean again. She’d been keeping her distance, letting him know silently that she’d been hurt by what he’d done. And Sean understood that, understood that she needed to leave that space open in order for love and care to refill the emptiness.

He was lucky that he had someone like her in his life to keep an eye on him. With everything going on, he always kind of felt like nobody was looking out for him. She was like a really cool older sister, and having her around made him feel not so helpless taking care of Daniel.

The first thing she said to him after she’d gotten over her silent treatment was asking if he could draw a portrait of her and Daniel, per Daniel’s request.

In the end, Daniel hung it up inside their tent, proud of his brother’s talent and of his own newfound closeness with Cassidy, whom he looked up to like a sister or motherly figure.

Finn and Sean didn’t talk as often as he hoped, and a lot of the time, Sean felt like Finn was keeping his distance. He was worried that what they had was over before it’d even started, and he didn’t know how to retie the bonds of their friendship that’d become so loosely untethered.

Sean wondered if Finn was embarrassed. About having come up with a plan that’d nearly gotten them killed, about having asked to use Daniel’s powers for something so horrible. But he especially wondered if Finn was embarrassed…about their kiss.

Sean really hoped it wasn't the last one.

By Friday, Sean was starting to worry again that something was wrong. It’d been almost a week since their failed heist, and all he hoped for was Finn to talk to him. Even something as simple as going down to the lake to fill the water cans, or wash dishes. So long as they were together, that’s all he wanted.

It was silly, really. How desperate Sean was for just a single ounce of attention from the other boy, but could you really blame him? With so much else going to Hell around him, he needed an outlet that gave him calm, made him feel safe. He wished he could say that he found that in Daniel, but it wouldn’t be true, because Daniel was his ward, and Sean was his brother’s keeper.

With Finn, Sean didn’t have to be anybody. He could just be Sean.

On Saturday morning, Sean woke earlier than Daniel, for a change. They had today and tomorrow off from work, so Sean always let Daniel sleep in for however long he wanted to. He really needed his rest, and Sean always made extra sure that he got it.

Before leaving, Sean ever so gently brushed his hand over Daniel's hair, then leaned down and lightly kissed the top of his head.

It was barely sunrise when he climbed quietly out of his tent, carefully rezipping it so as to not disturb Daniel’s hopefully peaceful sleep. Sean hoped Daniel was dreaming of good things, like cartoons or great food. So many nights, Daniel was restless, and Sean knew he was having nightmares. He felt fucking useless to protect his brother in the one place he couldn’t follow. His own mind.

Outside, only one other person was awake, sitting by the fire with a blanket over their head to keep out the slight morning chill. Sean approached them with enough sound in his step to alert them to know he was there, and when they turned to look, he saw that it was Penny.

“Morning, Sean,” he said, his legs bouncing to create some heat. “Super cold this morning. I made some coffee, if you want any.”

“Thanks, Penny, I’d love some.”

He walked over into the kitchen and wondered what he might have for breakfast later. Hannah, for all the grief she gave everybody, actually cared a whole hell of a lot for them. On Saturdays, she always made pancakes.

While he was pouring some coffee into the mug he usually used, one with a painted sunflower on both sides, he took a look over in the direction of Finn’s tent to see that it was unzipped, and Finn was sitting inside, reading his book.

He swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling a little warmer. He really wanted to go talk to him, but he wasn’t sure what to talk about, exactly. Everything had been so easy before, but now that their kiss was weighing on him, he wasn’t sure what they were, exactly. Nobody had ever made him so nervous before. In a good way…and maybe sometimes a bad way, if only in the sense that Sean was so worried for Finn’s health and safety. Finn could be reckless, but Sean understood why. When you’ve got nothing to lose, giving up a little more isn’t such a loss.

And Sean knew Finn had lost everything too many times before.

Taking a look back at the tent to make sure Finn was there and not getting up anytime soon, Sean grabbed another mug from the rack and poured some coffee to take to him. He took care to choose the mug he knew Finn liked, one with a little artwork of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet on it.

He carried both mugs across camp and approached Finn’s tent slowly, like he’d wake a sleeping bear if he wasn’t careful.

“Uh, hi,” Sean said lamely, and Finn looked up at him, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” he said with a goofy smile, and Sean felt that same warmth spread through his chest again. Finn’s smiles were like an instant shot of serotonin through his whole body.

Sean took Finn’s warm welcome as an invitation to join him in the tent, so he set the two mugs down nearby and climbed inside. Finn was laying on his stomach, facing out towards camp, so Sean mimicked the position, joining him to his left side.

Since getting closer to Sean, Finn had started cleaning up his tent more. Whereas before, he’d been sort of containedly messy, now it was neater, more organized, and cozier in a way that felt like home. Finn had lots of blankets and pillows, and it was like a little secret comfy space, just for him.

Ever since Finn had first shown interest in Sean, he hadn’t invited anybody else to his tent again. And if he was being honest with himself, that made Sean feel pretty fucking special. He didn’t know what he meant to Finn, but he knew he liked how it felt to be treated like he was a special person by the object of his own affections. Finn’s previous sexual exploits didn’t bother Sean, since it wasn’t his place to judge anybody in any way, shape, or form…but he did secretly really like that Finn had seemed to grow pretty attached to him. So much so that he’d given up on being with other people, just for Sean.

Laying down here, from this perspective, the camp looked so different. And it was such a calm morning. If they’d been any further North, this would’ve been a perfect morning for a slight sheet of snow to have fallen. The air smelled of pine and coffee, fresh air that promised instant tranquility to all who smelled it. Penny out there, drinking coffee by himself but not seeming lonely at all. Penny was alone a lot, but Sean thinks he prefers it that way.

Penny’s real name is Dean, and Sean wondered if it would ever be okay to call him that. Maybe Dean was a name Penny had left behind in his past. After all, each of them had things they were running from. Sean would understand if he didn’t want to remember his time as Dean.

“Did you…sleep okay?” Sean asked, pulling both of them out of their thoughts, and Finn away from his book.

“Actually, yeah,” Finn said, closing his book and putting it off to the side. “I did. Thank you, for asking.” He picked up the mug that Sean had brought and smiled to himself at the sight of which one it was. “How about you, did you sleep okay? I hope you did.”

“It’s getting better,” Sean said honestly, and Finn seemed happy to hear this. They both sipped their coffee quietly for a few moments, with just the subtle sounds of their breathing, the wind in the trees, and the chirping of birds to fill the world around them, like a soundtrack for their lives.

“Sean,” Finn said softly, looking down at the warm mug in his hands, its steam fluttering up into the air. “I just want to say again how sorry I am. I should’ve been smarter.”

Sean smiled a little bit, and said what he’d thought about a few days prior.

“Think about it like this,” he said reassuringly, “if we hadn’t broken in, Daniel and I wouldn’t have gotten our jobs back. So technically, your idea saved us.”

Finn seemed taken aback, and Sean was secretly glad to have surprised him with this revelation. He was glad to have given Finn something good like that, kind of a permission to let go, a forgiveness.

“I’m just so used to the guys around here treating me like I’m stupid,” Finn said quietly. “Love em all, of course, but…they all kinda treat me like I never have good ideas, or that I’m just a huge screw up.”

Sean shook his head pointedly, to make sure Finn knew he completely disagreed. “I’d never in a million years think you were stupid, Finn,” he said. “You’re one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met.”

“Sweet isn’t smart, though.”

“Sweet _and_ smart. Better?”

“A little bit.”

They settled into the warmth of their coffees and physical closeness between their conversation breaks, and it was a happy hush. Everything was still, but flowing, like a steady river in the early morning. This morning was the best he’d felt in weeks, even better than when they’d kissed. Because right now, things felt steady, and oh so very peaceful.

“So, you’re my…boyfriend?” Sean asked very timidly, not wanting to push the subject if it wasn’t on the table like he’d hoped it was. Being with Finn, crushing on him, made him feel like he was a kid again, discovering his own feelings for the very first time.

“Huh…funny.”

Sean’s heart fell out of his chest and his feelings sunk to the bottom of his stomach at Finn’s statement, and he suddenly felt a bit sheepish.

“What’s funny?” Sean asked, trying not to let his sudden disappointment apparent.

“I’ve never actually had a boyfriend,” Finn mused. “I’ve hooked up with guys before, y’know, but…nobody has ever wanted me, for _me_. Never wanted me just, to be there to comfort them, or enjoy the company. It’s always just been about sex. And sex is great, don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t everything.”

Okay, Sean thought, Finn wasn’t about to reject him. He felt better again.

“I feel the same way,” Sean said, relieved that Finn wasn’t about to turn him down right then and there like he’d worried. “I mean, not that I’ve ever had sex before, that’s kinda nerve-wracking to think about, honestly. But just, that, um…yeah. You know what I’m trying to say. Like I care about you, and stuff.”

“And stuff?”

“Sorry, I’m awkward. I know. I mean, just that…you mean a lot to me. I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but it’s been so hard out there on our own, so being around you has really helped me a lot. To feel better.”

In response, Finn didn’t say anything, instead reaching out with his left hand to touch Sean’s right one, which was holding his own mug securely. He released it from the cup and allowed Finn to join their hands. Finn brought it to his own face and let the warmth of Sean’s skin brush against his cheek. He smiled up at him in that way that Sean loved again. And Sean never wanted to be anywhere else.  

They stayed there together and drank their coffee in comfortable quietness, hands shyly together between them, but hidden from the view of prying eyes. This was a special thing, just for the two of them. No one else needed to know.

And maybe everything could be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from the Sufjan Stevens song of the same name.


	3. The Woods Where I Used To Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel struggles with nightmares and Sean considers the weight of a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Smurfs discussion in this chapter is a reference to a scene from _Donnie Darko_.

Daniel didn’t know about Sean and Finn. And he didn’t need to.

Confessing to your nine-year-old telepathic brother with a dead father, absent mother, and a heart and soul bogged down by trauma that his older brother was kind of dating another person in their group was off the table. He didn’t need Daniel thinking he was pulling away, or that he’d start caring about Finn more than him.

But, just because he didn’t want Daniel thinking that didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. Sean was worried that he might have to choose between them at some point. And he was worried that he might not choose Daniel.

He still wasn’t sure what this thing with Finn was. Saying that they were dating felt like it didn’t fit, given the terrible situation they were in. They could lose each other any second of any day, so it was like they had to skip all that stuff. There would be no dates, no secretive and shy flirting in the hallways between classes, no sleepovers at each other’s houses.

They hadn’t really been able to show any affection at all ever since they’d kissed back at camp. Daniel was always around, so it was difficult to do anything, even just brush hands or share a caring look. Not that they were really thinking much about it anyway. Being on the run from the law and being crushed by the ever-present threat of poverty kind of kept their mind on other, more important things.

For the morning of Sunday, the following week, Sean helped Cassidy out with the chores around camp. Washing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, shaking out blankets, so on and so forth. They had taken the duties for the day in order to give the others some time off, as a small kindness amidst all the awful shit they each lived through every day.

It was early March, the twelfth, and now just a tad bit warmer than February had been. Daniel’s birthday would be this month, on the eighteenth, which was the following Saturday. Though it’d been a whole year since his last one, Sean felt like no time had passed at all, that it was getting away from him. Dan was getting older…and so was he. Everything was changing, and he didn’t have power to stop it. One day, Daniel wouldn’t need him anymore. And that terrified him.

In a lot of ways, he liked having someone to look after. There was a certain love in having somebody who depended on him, and he sometimes felt a bit selfish when he hoped that Daniel would always be there to lean on him. Deep down, he wanted them to be together for as long as they possibly could. Seasons would change, and life would go on, but Sean feared for the future that would come when he’d built his life so heavily around Daniel.

It was around eleven by the time Daniel awoke, and Sean already knew something was off. Whenever Daniel slept in so much, it was almost always because he was having troubles.

When he reentered their tent, he found his brother crying softly to himself and staring straight down at the blanket beneath him. Sean immediately slipped into Big Brother mode, and climbed in to comfort him as quickly as possible.

“Is it bad today?” Sean asked quietly, sitting beside him, and Daniel just nodded sadly, pushing his face into Sean’s hoodie, not able to speak the words to say how he felt.

Sean shuffled the hair out of Daniel’s eyes and held him close, making sure that Daniel could really feel how close they were, to ground him in reality and let him know that his older brother wasn’t going anywhere without him. He cooed quiet words of reassurance and care to calm him down, stroking his hair and rocking slowly.

“One to ten, how bad?” he asked, and Daniel responded almost immediately.

“Seven,” Daniel spoke straight into Sean’s chest, which muffled his voice.

Daniel wasn’t usually dramatic with his badness scale answers, so Sean knew that it was serious.

And there was only one thing that would for sure be the medicine to heal him.

Daniel’s lullaby.

Daniel was just a little kid when the _Hunger Games_ had come out, but once it had, their dad had started singing the lullaby from it to them before bed every night, and now that they were out on their own, Sean always made sure to sing it for him, because he knew it was the only thing that was sure to calm him down, to calm them both down.

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow_

_A bed of grass, a soft, green pillow_

_Lay down your head, and close your eyes_

_And when they open, the sun will rise_

He rocked back and forth slowly, holding Daniel’s head to his chest and cradling it to him. Daniel looked up, only at Sean, Sean who was tenderly keeping Daniel’s head secured and rubbing his temples softly. Nothing else was important right now. Just Daniel. Just his safety. Just his happiness.

_Here it’s safe, here it’s warm_

_Here the daises guard, you from every harm_

_Here your dreams are sweet, and tomorrow brings them true_

_Here is the place, where I love you_

Sean didn’t know if he was religious. His dad was, but never overtly so. They had a photo of Jesus out in the garage, but it wasn’t ever made to be a big deal. But, Sean needed somebody too. Anybody. Maybe not anyone specific, but just, sitting here, holding Daniel, he looked up, closed his eyes, and just prayed to whatever greater power there might be out there to keep him and his brother safe. He knew he couldn’t protect Daniel forever, and nothing scared him more than the inevitability of losing him.

He lay Daniel back down to sleep, once the sniffles of the boy’s cries had quieted to a softer, more manageable sorrow. His eyes were puffy from sleep and tears, and his cheeks were pink from the salted water running down them.

“I’ll be right back, okay, enano?” he said, stroking his brother’s face. “I’m coming right back.”

Sean left quickly and went to grab a wash cloth from the kitchen, then warmed a small pan of water to wet it. He brought both back to the tent, rezipping it to give them privacy.

He dipped the wash cloth into the water, which was warm to the touch, but not so hot that it would burn Daniel. He squeezed out the excess water, and then folded the cloth into a rectangle. Leaning over, he placed it gently onto Daniel’s forehead, and pressed into it, trying to use the warmth of it to help give the boy some peace of mind.

Daniel’s eyes were closed, but by the still somewhat staggered sound of his breathing, he knew that his brother hadn’t fallen asleep again yet. Not that he’d expected him to immediately, since Daniel’s nightmares were probably a fate worse than Sean could ever imagine. He wondered if Daniel was afraid to sleep, if he’d rather just stay awake all the time, if only so that he didn’t have to go through that every night in a place where he felt out of control, trapped inside his own mind.

“If I ever lost you,” Sean said, cradling the side of Daniel’s face, his voice shaking slightly, “I’d lose myself.”

 

Down in the little open grassy area beside the lake, Sean found Finn, Penny, and Hannah hanging out on two old, worn-out couches that’d been set up as a little makeshift sitting space beside the water. Each of them held a beer loosely in their hand, and had a big bowl of popcorn sitting in-between Finn and Penny.

“Hey, babe,” Finn called out when he saw Sean approach, waving him over with a smile. Sean wondered if the term of endearment was just one that Finn had loaded into his regular vernacular, or if it were something just for him.

“Hey,” Sean said, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. “Sorry I’m late. Dan’s having a rough morning.”

“Oh, is…is he okay?” Penny asked, and Sean gave him a small but reassuring smile and nod.

“Yeah…he’ll be alright,” he said, sitting down to the left of Hannah, close to Finn where the couches were set perpendicular to one another. “I just stayed with him awhile, made him some hot chocolate, and then put him back to bed.”

“He’s so lucky to have you,” Finn said, which was a repeat of the usual mantra of praise he showered on Sean, praise he didn’t feel worthy of receiving.

“Yeah…” Sean said quietly, not feeling like his usual self. “I guess so.” He shrugged. Finn didn’t seem to want to accept this as a response, and he gave Sean a concerned look, but said nothing more, probably because the others were there with them.

These days, there was little relaxing to be had. Gone were the days of no responsibilities aside from doing the dishes on time or cleaning his room periodically.

He missed those days where he could do nothing. And have nothing be enough.

“D’you think the Smurfs can reproduce?” Penny mused ambiently, rotating his beer on his knee in thought. He stared to the clouds as if pondering this very deeply. “There was only one girl, so maybe she was just really making the rounds.”

“What?” Finn asked jokingly, still looking up towards the sky, looking up at the clouds as well. “Smurfette doesn’t fuck.”

“Nah, Smurfette fucks all the other Smurfs,” Hannah piped in, “why d’ya think Papa Smurf made her? Because all the other Smurfs were getting too horny.”

“Wait, no, wait wait wait.” Penny said. “What if one of the Smurfs was gay?”

“Okay, well, then, how about…” Hannah said. “She fucks them while the gay ones stand off to the side and watch.”

“Well, what about Papa Smurf?” Penny asked. “He must get in on the action.”

“Oh yeah,” Hannah said, leaning forward from where she sat, “see, what he does, is he films the gangbang and then he jerks off to the tape later-”

“First of all,” Finn said, cutting in and stopping Hannah mid-sentence. “Papa Smurf didn’t make Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as his secret spy, with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her.” He took a drink from his beer and shrugged. “And as for the whole _gangbang_ scenario. Smurfs are asexual, they don’t even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That’s what’s so illogical about being a Smurf. Y’know. What’s the point of living, if you can’t fuck?”

Everybody just stared at him, letting his response sink in ridiculously. 

“Dammit, Finn…” Hannah said, shaking her head incredulously with a half-smile, and they all burst out laughing.

Conversation phased out into a gentle hum of presence, not having much to say, but not needing to, either. It was comfortable here, in a way Sean found little of these days. Comfortable in the spaces between, a gentle intimacy in silence.

From across the couches, Finn poked Sean’s shoe with his own to get his attention. “Is there anything you miss, about your old life?” he asked. “I mean, obvious ones aside, just something…something small, that you wish you still had.”

Taking a moment to think about this, Sean realized that he hadn’t had much time to think about himself lately. He was always so concerned about what other people were doing and feeling that he hadn’t taken much time for himself, to think about what it was he really wanted.

“Well…there is one thing,” he admitted, biting his lip, unsure if he should share this memory. “And I had never thought about it until it wasn’t there anymore. And it’s one of the biggest things that reminds me of how much has changed.”

The others were all listening, but Sean was only looking at Finn while he told the story. He hoped he wasn’t being too obvious, but whenever Finn was around, he felt like they were the only two people who existed.

“Every morning,” he continued, “my dad would wake me up for school, and he’d come in with this big, goofy, dad smile on his face, and he’d open up the curtains, to let the sun in, and then he’d put a glass of water on my bedside table. And then, he’d say, ‘Let’s make yesterday jealous of today.’”

All four of them took some time to take that in, and it was quiet for a long while, nobody else knowing how to follow that up. But there wasn’t any expectation that they needed to.

“I’m sure he’s proud of you, wherever he is,” Hannah offered, and though it was heartbreaking to hear, Sean appreciated the sentiment.

“Thank you.” He swallowed back the memory of it harshly. “I hope so too.”

“Hey, guys, uh…d’you think you could give us some time, um, alone?” Finn asked kindly, but Sean knew that this must mean he wanted to talk about something important, which made Sean’s heart clench tightly.

“Yeah,” Penny said, standing up and patting Finn on the knee. “Yeah, sure thing, C’mon, Hannah.”

As she stood, she gave them a kind smile and nodded, and alongside Penny, the two of them headed off back to camp.

Finn waited for a few moments, to make sure that the other two were far enough away so they could speak in privacy.

“Am I a bad influence on Daniel?” Finn finally asked, stuttering slightly on the question in apparent self-doubt.

“What?” Sean asked. Finn was growing increasingly concerned about his own affect on them, and how they perceived him. Insecurity? “No way, of course not. Daniel’s gonna do whatever he wants anyway, so it’s fine. Don’t worry too much about it. Daniel is as Daniel does. And so it goes.”

“I mean it, though. I don’t wanna, like, ruin him or something.”

“I’m sure I’ve done more to ruin him than you have, believe me. He’ll be fine.”

“What about you?” Finn switched gears in tone. “Am I a bad influence on you?”

Sean shook his head immediately, not wanting Finn to think he was a bad person.

“Well, I probably never would’ve had the courage to kiss a guy if it weren’t for you,” Sean teased, brushing their knees together. “Maybe I needed the threat of imminent death on my tails to get me to take a chance like that.”

“Yeah, we haven’t, uh…really talked about that.” Finn fidgeted with a string hanging loosely off his jeans. “Did I force it on you?”

“Of course not!” Sean asserted, never wanting for a second for Finn to think that way. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t really want it. Trust me. I’m pretty stubborn, so I would know.”

“Okay…”

“You’ve gotta cut me some slack, though,” Sean said. “I’m kind of a complete idiot when it comes to feelings and stuff, and I’ve never dated anybody at all, especially not...another boy.”

“Had you ever thought about it before?” Finn asked, unable to hide the hope in his voice. Sean shrugged lightly, moving his mouth from side to side in thought.

“Liking guys?” He asked. “I don’t know. Well, that’s not true. I did. But, I just liked everybody, like, guys _and_ girls. And it was confusing. It still is. Because I always felt like I had to choose. Or, since I liked girls too, I used it as a shield to hide behind. I always kind of felt like I’d never have to confront the side of me that liked boys because I just figured I’d be with a girl anyway, since that’s what everybody would’ve wanted.”

“Ever had a crush on a guy?”

“Well, there was this new guy in my art class at the beginning of school, last year,” Sean said, and Finn nodded to encourage him to continue. “He was a foreign exchange student from somewhere in East Asia, I wasn’t sure because he was a grade above me and I didn’t know him very well. But he was really cute, and, I didn’t know how to handle those feelings very well. I couldn’t tell if I liked him or if I wanted to be him. And he was really talented, like with his art.”

“Damn, Sean,” Finn laughed lightly, “way to make a guy jealous.”

“Sorry. Not like I’ll ever see him again anyway.”

“I’m kidding, don’t worry. I understand, though. Sucks it has to be like this.”

“What about you?” Sean offered, sending the question back Finn’s way. “How did you know that you liked guys?”

Finn didn’t respond for a long time. And Sean wondered if that had been a bad question to ask. All the prior joviality of their conversation had been pushed out in an instant by a sense of settled dread falling like snow. Like Sean had washed out into uncharted territory.

When he finally spoke, Sean was speechless.

“Well,” Finn said, barely moving, and just looking straight up at the sky. “Getting forced into sex stuff by this one piece of shit guy my dad used to bring around the house really did a number on me.”

Sean held his breath, then released it heavily through his nose like he was releasing an entire lifetime out. He felt discomforted, guilty for having asked this. He wished he hadn’t.

“Jesus, Finn…”

“It’s fine,” Finn said stubbornly, readjusting himself where he sat. “I’m really over it.”

But Sean could tell he really wasn’t.

The two of them let that just sit with no response for a long time, both just kind of sitting there with way too much on their minds and not enough words coming off their lips.

“How old were you?” Sean finally asked, stepping carefully through the gentle minefield that might be this conversation. One wrong move and it could all blow up in his face.

“Daniel’s age.”

Sean choked. Mentally, literally, he didn’t know. But that was a straight dagger to the heart, to the head, slashed and repeated until he was all cut up and bleeding inside.

“Did your dad know?” Sean asked, and Finn scoffed humorously.

“I don’t know,” he said with a taste of bitterness. “Probably. But he didn’t care. And nobody was around to protect me. I hate that it was _that_ that made me feel this way though. Maybe I’m just like, a nymphomaniac or something.”

“Finn, I…I-”

“Anyway,” Finn said, “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.” He looked down at the bottle in his hand but didn’t seem interested in drinking it now. “If that’s okay.”

“I can’t help if you won’t…if you won’t talk to me.”

“I’ve been waiting for the day when I wake up and you’re gone,” Finn said, his voice held with a sense of untethered disdain for something Sean didn’t know, nor understood. “Not gone like you left. Gone like you were never there in the first place.”

How could you respond to somebody who saw you with such reverence? How could you deny a miracle to somebody who was praying for one?

Sean said nothing.

“You and Daniel inspire me,” Finn continued, struggling getting out those words. “You make me want to be a better person. Make me feel like I need to try harder to show the people around me how much I really love them.”

Sean had never known anybody who could say such things. Nobody who was so willing to say so much, yet so little. It didn’t make sense to him.

“I have so many things I want to tell you,” Finn said, “but I’m afraid that I won’t say any of them.”

Sean got up from where he’d been sitting on the opposite couch and approached Finn cautiously, standing before him and looking down, where Finn followed his gaze and looked up in wonder. Sean reached his left hand out and raised it to Finn’s cheek, cradling his face there in a motion of protection, and Finn brought his own hand up to cover Sean’s.

Finn gently pulled Sean’s hand down from his face, and brought it in front of him to brush both his hands over the skin of the other boy’s as a distraction.

“My older brother,” he said, just looking at their hands, “the one right above me, just two years older, he, uh…my dad was beating us pretty bad one night. I had uh…a bloody lip, nose, y’know?” He squinted to look up at Sean, the sun in his eyes, making sure Sean was listening. “And…and my brother just grabbed me right from under him by my shoulders and he pulled me away from my dad and ran with me upstairs and told me to hide in the back of the closet. And he covered me with a bunch of clothes and stuff. Told me not to make any noise, and to not come out until he came back for me. He didn’t come back for like, an hour and a half, or something. But I’ll never forget that. Brothers can be tough, and they can be hard on you sometimes, I know I got pushed around a lot. But, I knew he loved me, and he didn’t want me to get hurt. He wanted me to be safe, and he took a harder beating from our dad just to make sure that I didn’t have to.”

Sean sat back down across from him, unable to process what’d just been said from a standing position. He opened his mouth to speak, but Finn wasn’t finished yet.

“What I’m saying, is…I don’t want you to think I don’t care, Sean. I care so much it hurts sometimes. Because I’m afraid that this is all gonna just disappear before I even know it. I’ve lost everything, every person in my life that meant something to me. And I’m afraid to get close to you because I don’t want to have to miss you when you’re gone.”

“I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Sean reached out his right hand to place reassuringly on Finn’s knee. “I promise.”

“Promises mean a lot to me, Sean.” Finn looked unwaveringly into Sean’s eyes. “Don’t say what you can’t mean.”

“Do you think I would lie?” Sean asked, retracting his hand and sitting up a little straighter. He wasn’t hurt by the insinuation, just confused. Finn was a difficult person to figure out when he wanted to be.

“Maybe…” Finn shook his head to himself. “I don’t know. It’s fine to lie to make me feel better any other time, but, on this one, please just tell me the truth.”

“I _am_ telling you the truth. And I promise that I won’t leave.”

Finn just stared at him. For way too long. Or not long enough. And Sean wished he could hide from the scrutiny of those eyes that saw right through him. He’d never felt so transparent in his entire life.

“I don’t think that’s a promise you can really make,” Finn said with a despondent shake of his head, and Sean knew that it was true. “Maybe you won’t choose to go, but you could end up getting taken away by something. The cops, death, money. Anything.”

“Finn, I don’t know if I-”

“Promise me that Daniel is more important than I am,” Finn said sternly, interrupting his thought, and Sean cringed inside at those words. “Promise me that no matter what you do, he comes first.”

For a moment, Sean didn’t respond, and it was enough immediate silence to tip Finn off that he was having an internal monologue about this conversation flashing before his eyes.

“The fact that you’re hesitating on this really worries me,” Finn said, and Sean wished he hadn’t noticed, but he knew he couldn’t hide anything from the one person who always seemed to know how he was feeling inside. “I don’t need you to like me, Sean. I want you to hate me, honestly, just so I know you’ll take care of Daniel like you should. He’s your brother, for better or worse, and I’m just nobody.”

“Why do you always say that?” Sean asked, upset, breaking from Finn’s grasp and sighing loudly. “You always talk about yourself like you don’t matter.”

“Because I don’t, Sean,” Finn reasserted. “I have nothing. What can I give you, really? I’ve got no family, no money, nothing. _I’m_ nothing.”

_If he’d seen him in the street, he would’ve passed him by._

_What they became, was not to be._

_And they would’ve never met…never been._

_But if he could, he’d keep Finn safe in his dreams._

_He knew he couldn’t keep what wouldn’t stay._

_And it seemed this place was built to keep him away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title comes from Zach Berkman's song "Down to the Second."
> 
> I improvised Daniel's birthday as March 18th because he always struck me as a Pisces. Take this with a grain of salt, though, since we don't know his actual, canonical birthday in-game yet.


	4. October Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group continue work as usual, and Sean and Finn further explore the nature of their relationship.

Midweek. Wednesday. Eleven-thirty at night. Daniel couldn’t sleep again.

Typically, Sean and Daniel retired to bed at sometime around nine, just to be sure that Daniel could get a good night’s rest. Sean would’ve preferred to stay up later, but for his brother’s sake, he decided to set the early bedtime, and then practice what he preached so that Daniel would have a positive example to follow.

Tonight, however, Daniel was buzzing with nervous energy and couldn’t get to sleep, instead tossing and turning like a fish out of water all around the tent, which, when you’re in such a confined space, especially with another person, is as claustrophobic as it sounds.

To remedy his proclaimed and repeated “I’m just not tired yet!” mantra, Sean had played along and offered to go through a few rounds of checkers, to which Daniel happily obliged. One good thing that’d come from being so disconnected from society was that Daniel had grown more interested in simpler things. Gone were the days of his PlayBox and TV, and now was the era of board games and blanket forts.

“Sean,” Daniel said carefully, surveying the game board in front of him and deciding where to move next. He was knelt beside it, sitting up on his knees. “Can I…ask you something?”

“Sure thing.” Sean smiled at him encouragingly. He was leaning on his left side, propped up by his arm while they played. His eyes felt stingy with the need for sleep. “What’s up?”

“What do you think of Finn?” Daniel asked curiously, peering up at Sean to gauge his reaction, testing Finn’s name on for size like it was an alias or a fake person.

Sean gave him a bemused look, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “What do you mean?” he asked, moving another checker on the board. He was playing red, and Daniel was playing black.

“Like,” Daniel paused, his kid brain trying to rationalize his wonderings. “Do you trust him?”

“Of course I do,” Sean reassured warmly. “I wouldn’t let anybody near you that I didn't trust completely.” He moved another piece on the board. “Why do you ask, anyway?”

“Well,” Daniel said, “hm…I…he’s always looking at you, like when you’re not looking, and he was wearing your hoodie the other day. Maybe he’s up to something.”

Sean had to bite his lips lightly to keep from smiling, breathing deeply out his nose to stop the laugh bubbling up in his throat.

“I don’t think he’s up to anything, enano.”

“Okay, well,” Daniel pursed his lips curiously, deciding if Sean’s reassurance was enough. “I’m gonna keep an eye on him anyway.”

Sean thought it was sweet, that Daniel was worried about him. He didn’t say it like that, in so many words, but in his own special, Daniel way, Sean liked knowing that his brother noticed those kinds of things.

“Do you not trust him?” Sean asked curiously, to make sure that there wasn’t more to Daniel’s worry than he was letting on. If there was an actual problem, he’d need to address it, even if it did involve Finn. Or perhaps, especially so.

“I do! But…he doesn’t hang out with me as often as he used to. He hangs out more with you now. I miss spending time with him. He was like another brother. And he let me have candy before bedtime.”

In the pause between conversations, their game ended (Daniel won) and they reset the board for a new one. Sean hoped that playing this repeatedly over and over again would eventually wear Dan down so he’d want to get back to bed and have some rest.

“So, you’re gonna be ten soon,” Sean pointed out, changing the subject and surveying the game board to figure his first move. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said happily, lolling from side to side on his knees where he was sitting on them. “I think, when I’m ten, then I’ll know everything.”

“Everything?” Sean asked, feigning enthused surprise. He held back a smile. “That’s…quite a lot to know. You sure it’ll all fit in there?” He reached over to lightly poke Daniel’s forehead and Daniel shooed his hand away playfully.

“Definitely,” he said, taking Sean’s hand and placing it on his head like a hat. “When I’m ten, I get to know more things. You promised.”

 

During work the next day, Sean found himself pretty tired from having stayed up with Daniel until almost two in the morning, then having woken up at six to go get on Big Joe’s truck and head out to the farm.

Currently, Sean and Finn were potting cannabis plants into terra cotta pots in the greenhouse, both of them clipping and trimming here and there, pouring dirt, watering, the works. Sean’s knees ached from where he was knelt on the hard ground, and his jeans were dirtied as always.

One good thing about Finn was that he didn’t hold onto things for long. Things might get a little heated in a conversation, but he always bounced back soon enough. Their talk by the lake on Sunday hadn’t damaged anything, and Sean knew that Finn just needed to get out his feelings, to hear them be said, to make them real by speaking them into reality.

He wiped sweat from his brow onto the back of his gloved hand, and looked up at Finn, who was focused particularly hard on gently settling a tiny plant into the fertile dirt.

“Daniel thinks you’re up to something,” Sean said teasingly, clipping some leaves and giving Finn a sly smile but not looking at him directly.

“Oh?” Finn enthused with his brow raised, a smirk on his lips. “And pray tell what that might be.”

“He says you’ve been staring at me too much, suspiciously,” Sean said theatrically, as if this was _highly_ concerning, “and I think he thought you took my hoodie without asking. He didn’t know I let you borrow it.”

“Borrow?” Finn said incredulously, pinching up the fabric of Sean’s hoodie in reference as he wore it. “This hoodie is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn. Maybe I _will_ steal it. Or I just like it because it’s yours.”

“That’s gay, dude,” Sean said with a laugh, pouring more dirt into the pot in front of him.

“Oh, you know I meant it full homo,” Finn said. “Total homo. So much homo that people’ll have gay babies in our honor.”

“Really?” Sean raised his eyebrows. “That many? I didn’t know you liked me _that_ much.”

“Eh, I only like you a little,” Finn said dismissively in a tease, and Sean laughed.

“Like this much?” Sean said, raising his hand to show a tiny space between his pointer finger and thumb.

Finn reached over and pushed Sean’s fingers even closer together, so that there was practically no space between them at all.

“Like _that_ much,” he said, winking playfully and then leaning back to his side of the pots to continue his work.

 

Climbing off the back of Big Joe’s truck, Sean and Finn were the last ones left, both of them having intentionally lingered at the back of the pack in order to talk. Daniel had run off with Penny back to camp to go play some game with him, maybe _Monopoly_ or _Candy Land_ , so Sean knew his brother was in good hands. Sean always hated playing _Monopoly_ with Daniel because he could be such a huge brat if he didn’t win, and it took absolutely forever to get through a game.

He wished he could go back to the days when his only worry was Daniel being a brat.

Finn held out his hand to help Sean off the truck, and Sean grabbed it with a grateful smile, using the other boy’s leverage to help himself down. Once he was off, Finn turned to him and lightly brushed on his shoulders in a grooming way. He then looked down at the ground, suddenly super interested in the dirt, apparently, as Big Joe's truck pulled away, rumbling softly. 

“So…we haven’t kissed since that night at camp,” Finn said, then shot up to catch Sean’s eyes to search for approval.

“Yeah…” Sean said awkwardly, shrugging because he wasn’t sure what else to do with his body, standing so close to Finn.

There was a brief pause, where they both lingered in front of one another, and then at the same time, both of them went into the others arm in embrace, feeling tethered by something of a telepathic connection to be close to each other right now. Finn was a few inches shorter than Sean, so he wrapped his hands around Sean’s middle, and Sean’s arms went around Finn’s back.

“You smell good,” Sean joked, voice muffled into his own wolf squad hoodie that Finn was wearing. He held him closer.

“Yeah,” Finn said back, “only because it smells like you.”

If he could, Sean would’ve held onto that moment for the rest of his life. But it wasn’t possible to capture fleeting moments like that, like they were water older than all the seas trapped inside of a quartz stone, never to be touched again, only looked at in awe. It wasn’t possible to live forever, not as humans. But those memories, they stayed here, entrapped in the earth like life with no escape.

Once they pulled away, Finn kept his left arm wrapped around Sean’s shoulders, and they slowly starting heading back to camp, walking in-step with one another, both looking down at the ground to watch their feet. Sean had his left hand up to hold Finn’s around his shoulder.

“Are you gonna tell Daniel, about this?” Finn asked curiously, but Sean couldn’t figure his angle for asking.

“Should I?” he asked, genuinely looking for some advice here. This wasn’t a situation he’d ever had to approach before, and Finn seemed to know more than he did.

“Are you worried he won’t like that you’re with a guy?” Finn asked, more curiously than worriedly, though his tone held both.

“No, it isn’t that,” Sean said with a wave of his hand. “I mean I’m sure he’ll have questions, especially since he still thinks most girls have cooties. But, I’m more concerned that he’ll feel left behind.”

“You think he will?”

“I mean…yeah. Yeah, I do. I’ve hurt him so much already, I don’t want to make him feel like I’m taking you away, too. He thinks you’re like a new brother to him. So. I don’t want to rob him of that.”

Back in camp, Finn and Sean separated from their embrace but still stayed close, Finn keeping his fingers looped through one of Sean’s belt-loops where no one else could see.

Sean doubled-checked that Daniel wasn’t watching as he walked back with Finn, not that it would really matter, since there was no way Daniel would be suspicious of them being together like that. He was nine, after all. The implications of Sean and Finn being in the same tent probably weren’t the first or last thing on Daniel’s mind.

Once Sean saw that Daniel was distracted over at the kitchen table with _Monopoly_ lain out in front of him, both Penny and Cassidy playing along, he ducked into Finn’s tent first, with the other boy following behind him.

The inside of Finn’s tent smelled like incensed hemp, and clean laundry. It was cozily warm, with comfy blankets and pillows spread out with enough room for the both of them to lay down closely. The last lights of the night were fading out, so Finn lit a small lantern beside his sleeping bag. Sean laid down next to Finn and clasped his hands over his chest.

“I’m sorry for getting all manic depressive on you the other day,” Finn said. “Guess it’s just my insecurities doing the talking. I say a lot of things I don’t mean. And, I’m trying to get better.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sean assured him. “You’ve gotta keep me on my toes somehow. I’m already used to that with Daniel.”

Finn moved closer to Sean and pushed his way into Sean's embrace, snuggled into his chest, searching for even more comfort and safety there than he'd already found, like he’d find some magic in the way of Sean’s warmed touch.

“Mm…mhm…can we just kiss and forget about it?” he asked, looking up at Sean’s face with cutesy puppydog eyes, and Sean blushed. Being reminded that this was actually real and they really were together, in this way, still got to him even now. This was all so new, still, and he didn’t think it would wear off anytime soon. He didn’t want it to.

Finn moved up close to him, then. Very close. He stared right up at Sean’s face, as though he liked it very much and wanted to study it, linger on it.

He reached out his hand and touched Sean’s lower lip with his finger, letting it travel left and right, then right and left again, feeling gently every curve of the shape of the boy’s mouth. Sean parted his lips slightly, delicately, and Finn trailed his fingertips over them again, teasing the feeling around Sean’s opened mouth. Finn smiled at the other as he lay there, and that very smile filled the other boy with a kind of butterfly apprehension about what may happen next.

Finn lifted his knee over Sean’s lap and straddled him, trying to be as close as he could to this boy for whom he would give everything, and Sean didn’t have a clue in the world why he would do such a thing. Sean hesitantly placed his hands on Finn’s hips and felt the skin above his hipbones, beneath his shirt. Nothing in the world could wash that feeling from his body again, and he knew right then and there that it would always mark him, like an invisible birthmark that shown brightly on him, one which only he and Finn could see.

The way Finn’s hands felt, rough from work, but caring, a perfect mix of soft and hard energies. His lips and the feeling of his skin pressed against Sean’s bare face, tickling slightly in small tingles of pleasure that made it all the better. The way he smelled this close, the way he tasted – coffee, smoke, skin – tongues.

Sean had never kissed anyone before, so he had no frame of reference for what a _kiss_ was supposed to be. But, if it was always like this, he never wanted to have anybody else’s lips touch his again. Not now. And not ever.

Finn was good at this, but then again, Sean probably would’ve thought he was good at this even if he was actually very objectively bad. Just because it’s Finn.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands, alternating between holding onto Finn’s waist and bringing them up to his head, hands in his hair, then down his back.

When Finn pulled away to sit back up, he jokingly ran his tongue along Sean’s bottom lip with a teasing smile. Still straddled over Sean’s waist, Finn ran his hands along Sean’s chest gently, then trailing down to grab Sean’s hands off of his own waist, linking them together in front of him. The closeness of their lower halves was extremely apparent to Sean, but he was trying not to think about it, lest he get too worked up.

Finn leaned down and gave him a last chaste peck on the lips, before flopping back over onto his own side of the tent. Both of them had reddened lips and cheeks, and it felt warmer inside there now, too warm, so Finn made the motion to remove Sean’s borrowed hoodie from off of himself, revealing his usual gray shirt underneath. He folded it, and set it off to the side, then laid back down.

They couldn’t take it back. And even if they went on to pretend like it had never happened –  _it was still real, and it always would be real._  Still physically tangible, holdable, moldable, and though they’d talked circles around one another for days, cheekily pretending like neither of them knew what was really going on inside the other – now it was proven, solidified. And they could never say now that it had all been just a tease, that it had all been just in good fun. Because now they’d put actions to words, commitment to feeling, bodies to the test, lips upon lips.

“You know what’s so sad?” Finn said, looking up at the top of the tent, at the way the lantern cast illuminated shadows of them. Sean’s mind was so aflame with this feeling of being near Finn that he almost couldn’t think of anything else. So he barely heard Finn speak.

“What?” Sean asked, turning his head to look over. He rolled onto his right side to face Finn, whose arm was bent behind his head like a makeshift pillow.

“Seeing someone in a movie or a music video lay ironed shirts out on a bed and then leave them there,” Finn explained. “It’s so tragic in a way I can’t explain. Like seeing something someone was going to use go untouched is really sad.”

Sean nodded understandingly, but said nothing as he knew that Finn required no response. Sometimes, Finn spoke just to speak, and Sean afforded him the opportunity to do so in a safe space like this where he wouldn’t be made to feel like a burden or that he talked too much.

“I wish we could spend the night together,” Finn said sleepily, reaching out to absentmindedly poke at Sean’s chest, trailing his fingers up and down, spelling little phantom words into the fabric of his shirt. “Not like, sex. Just, like in the same tent, at least…the same bed. Gets kinda lonely in here. I’m not used to feeling that way. It’s like, now that I know how it feels to have someone like you, I can feel it when you’re not around.”

“I mean, I guess I could ask Daniel if it’s alright,” Sean suggested, more as a ponder to himself about whether or not he could do that. “It’s not like he’d ever guess in a million years that it was as anything more than friends, so, I don’t see why not. Mostly he’ll probably just be afraid to be alone.”

“I just wanna spend time with you, that’s all,” Finn said softly. He was just being honest, and Sean understood that. At the very least, when Finn wanted something like that, he was mostly okay asking for it. In terms of more personal things, like his deeper, more complicated emotions, Finn was more closed off.

“I know you do,” Sean said, “and I do too.”

“I have something for you,” Finn said abruptly, as if this whole time, he’d been waiting to bring it up, and Sean quirked his head curiously.

“Oh? You do?” he asked.

“Yeah, I…I do.” Finn said.

From his backpack, Finn dug around to receive something small that Sean couldn’t identify. He turned back to Sean and held it out for him to see.

Hanging down from his hand was a long, black string, tied like a necklace. At the very bottom, dangling off the end was a single white ring.

“It’s a gauge,” Finn said, handing it over to Sean so he could see it. “For my ears.” He motioned up to his ear to show the other one from the white pair, indicating that they would now each have one.  

“I thought it was romantic,” Finn said half sheepishly and half jokingly, hiding his potential disappointment in the case that Sean thought it was silly.

Sean just stared down at it in his hands and immediately felt tears welling up in his eyes that he couldn’t stop.

“Are you…crying?” Finn asked with a shocked laugh, not at Sean’s expense, but just at the surprise that Sean had reacted in that way.

“Mhm…” Sean just nodded and Finn reached over to pull him close to him, pushing their foreheads together.

He didn’t know where it came from, but there it was. Streaming down his face in tears of love and hope and memory, and he couldn’t control it. Everything was so much, and he had to let it out, lest he explode from it all being trapped inside him.

Finn pressed his head into Sean’s, and said, “I take it you like it.”

Sean sniffled a few times, and then reached his hand up to wipe his eyes. “I’m so sappy. I love it,” he said, clearing his throat once he realized he sounded a little weepy. 

“You’re such a nerd. I love you,” Finn said, nuzzling his forehead on Sean’s, his face lain bare for Sean with some deep emotion that couldn’t be identified.

Sean knew that Finn didn’t mean _I love you_ in the really serious way, so he just smiled and took it as another Finn-ist term of endearment. He knew that Finn had only meant it as a gesture, to mean that he liked Sean very, very much...but not the actual, life-changing _I Love You._

Right?

“Emotions are just running high tonight,” Sean said, and Finn nodded in agreement against him.

For the first time in months, Sean saw his life as it was. This incredible thing had only grown from something so terrible, left back in his house in Seattle all those months ago, cast away like Halloween ghosts in those October trees.

For the first time, he didn't want to be anywhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from Ron Pope's song of the same name, _October Trees._


	5. Lover Is Childlike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group celebrate Daniel's birthday and Sean has an important conversation with his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty lengthy, so I hope you all enjoy.

On Saturday, for Daniel’s birthday, all of them decided to go to the Sequoia Park Zoo, which was about an hour from where they were, to the west, and closer to the coast of California. They woke up around nine in the morning to catch the bus, and headed out on their way.

Buying bus tickets might’ve been out of budget in the sense that Sean wanted to save absolutely every penny they made, but, since it was Daniel’s birthday, he wanted to do something different, for a change. Something special. Getting to Puerto Lobos was important, but if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t actually know what was down there.

Puerto Lobos was this fantasy place, built in his mind like water in a desert. Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s a mirage. But you don't know until you're too close to go back where you came from. He only knew vaguely that their dad might have family and land down there, but nothing more concrete than that. He might just be running a fool’s errand, here, chasing after some dream that couldn't be.

If he made it to the promised land, and there was nothing but ash, where could he go then? When everything else had been broken, and all he’d known wasn’t such that he thought it was, could he even go on?

Visiting the zoo today was a chance for Daniel to be a kid again, and Sean wanted him to have the best birthday he possibly could.  

The Swedish couple had headed out weeks prior, so the gang en route to the Zoo was everyone left. Sean, Daniel, Finn, Cassidy, Penny, and Hannah. They invited Jacob to join them, but he said that he didn’t want to impose. Sean understood that Jacob always felt like a bit of an outsider in camp, and hell, he even felt like that himself sometimes. Because of this, Sean always gave him his space whenever he needed it. Instead of joining them, Jake offered to clean up around camp while they were all gone for the day, and it was greatly appreciated.

 

The sky that morning was painted in all the colors of a beautifully sad rainy Spring day; light greys, minted blues, deepened pinks like the calm after a storm. Sean let his head rest on the window of the bus, where it was cold to the touch, but he didn’t mind. The coolness of the glass calmed the warmth of fear and anxiety in his head, and there, he remained still, focusing on the way the window softly rumbled on his skin, the way the raindrops occasionally fell, dripping down and disappearing from view.

Daniel sat to his right, leaning on him and resting his eyes, since he'd had to wake up so early on his usual day off, his small arms held onto Sean’s larger ones, searching for protection. Finn sat across from Sean, similarly gazing out the window, watching the cars pass, the trains roll by, the cityscape on the horizon, and the impossibly green trees made even more so by the clouded sky. Sean had never seen Finn in this light before. Together, on this bus, it flashed before him in the tease of a normal life. He could imagine that they were schoolmates riding the bus together on a field trip, or taking a teen getaway vacation from Seattle to Portland on some rainy weekend, going thrifting or to the rose festival. 

In these moments, the weight of the world seemed not so heavy, and the way Finn looked in the clouded sun that shown down on them whispered to him to look past everything he had ever learned about feeling alone.  

If he could, he’d set this bus to travel for a million miles on a path going nowhere if it only meant that he could make this go on forever.

The ride took about an hour, and by the time they arrived, it was just past ten-thirty in the morning.

Zoos are such strange places, almost the opposite of liminal ones. A liminal space is somewhere that seems to take time away from you, to cause you to lose it, or make you feel like you’re stuck unwavering in a single moment of prosperity. But zoos are these kind of tiny little pieces of life carefully procured in a hidden valley of its own kind. It’s like you’ve stepped into a snowglobe, and you've become both the object of being seen, and also the one looking in. To see these animals and know that though they may be safe here, they have no life as was meant for them in nature. It is a bittersweet note to taste, to hear, and to see.

Metaphorically speaking, the story of the two wolf brothers on the run was one such tale that perhaps contradicted the prison that might be a zoo. While the brothers may have felt trapped in their zoo, their home; it was still just that, _a home_. They only wished for more freedom, more individuality, to run where they wished, where they felt they belonged out in this wild, wild world. And now that it is gone, all that they knew has faded away, blown like crushed dust in the palms of their hands, held too tightly, and broken by their own grasp. And what do they have now? Nothing, but the wish to go home again.

But you can’t go home again. And you can’t step in the same river twice.

It is something to consider, at least.

 

To walk around the zoo, they split into two groups. Sean with Daniel and Finn, and Cassidy with Penny and Hannah. Despite this, though, they kind of lingered around the same areas anyway and kept bumping into each other while they were there, to which Finn would dramatically claim that they were being followed. Since none of them had cellphones, they agreed to meet back at the entrance sometime around four or five to go back home.

Daniel wanted to see _everything_. Literally _everything_. And he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he’d walked this zoo to every single corner to make sure he hadn't missed a single animal.

While they made their way around, Finn alternated between standing closer to Sean, closer to Daniel, or to both of them, since both brothers wanted him to themselves. Sean, for obvious reasons, and Daniel because he looked up to Finn so much and wanted to hang out with him. Him wearing Mushroom’s bandana had come from his wish to emulate the way that Finn wore his own black one. And Sean definitely noticed this, though he didn't point it out.

Daniel's favorite enclosure so far had been the red pandas, as he’d lingered especially long around that one, tracing the length of it to see them from every angle he possibly could.

After a little while, Finn told the two of them that he was going to go off on his own for a minute, much to the chagrin of Daniel, who wanted to follow him around like a puppy. Finn promised he’d be right back, and Dan seemed satisfied with this to some extent.

“Sean, can I ask you something?” Daniel asked in a curious tone, pulling on Sean’s jacket while his older brother was knelt to read a small plaque at the base of the sidewalk telling him something about mountain lion tracks.

“Yeah, of course,” Sean said, not looking up because he didn’t expect the question to be anything too serious, maybe just an animal thing or that he had to go to the bathroom.

“Why were you holding Finn’s hand?” Daniel asked curiously, looking up at Sean with innocent eyes that held no ulterior motive aside from being that of a wondering child.

“Oh, that…we’re just friends…” Sean said, feigning ignorance. “Friends do that.”

“Oh, okay,” Daniel shrugged, seeming to lose interest. “Can _I_ hold your hand?”

“Of course, buddy,” he said, and took Daniel’s hand in his own.

Daniel was a pretty aggressive hand-holder, kind of like he was afraid he’d get lost if he didn’t hold on with a complete death grip to the person he was with. If Sean wasn’t used to it, he might not like it, but since it was Daniel, _his_ Daniel, it was kind of comforting, in its own way. If Dan didn’t hold on to him with the strength of a thousand rubber bands, it just wouldn’t be the same.

They stayed just the two of them for a little while, visiting the lions, the gorillas, into the reptile house, then back to the red pandas again because Daniel liked them so much.

From behind them, they eventually heard Finn’s voice call out while they were looking down into the wolf exhibit, and they turned to face him.

“What's this?” Finn said, placing his hands on his hips dramatically, brow raised at Daniel. “I think I’ve been robbed of my hand-holding partner.”

Daniel giggled at Finn’s antics and said, “Yep, you have.”

“Whatever will I do now,” Finn pondered dramatically. “Oh, well, guess I’ll just have to go find Penny and hold his hand instead.” He flicked his eyes up to Sean’s intentionally to show he was just being purposely theatrical, and Sean rolled his eyes with a smile.

“Uh huh,” Sean said, “You go do that now.”

Finn just stuck his tongue out and joined back with them anyway, obviously having been joking about going to find Penny. Even though he was just kidding, Sean was secretly glad that Finn hadn’t actually meant anything by it.

Both of them ended up holding Daniel’s hands anyway, one on each side, and yet again, a taste of normality hit Sean, and he longed for the day when this all would end. When he could just be a teenager again and not have to worry about whether or not he and Daniel would survive another night.

He thought about being here with Finn, like this, like a little family, and he wondered if it was possible, if they really could be like their own found family. Sean was curious how they looked to people on the outside, two guys holding the hands of a kid, like a couple with their child. He wondered if people could look at them and immediately know they were together _like that_. He didn’t know if he wanted them to.

“Has anybody ever…done anything to you, for liking guys?” Sean asked quietly to Finn, while Daniel had run on ahead, distracted after having gotten to the front of a small crowd standing around the penguin enclosure window.

“What,” Finn whispered back, “like, beat me up, called me a fag, something like that?”

“Yeah…”

“Nah,” he said. “I think I’m kinda too intimidating for that. Not that I’m like inherently scary or whatever, I just mean, I don’t think much people care about me hooking up with boys when they already hate me more just for being homeless.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Why,” Finn asked concernedly, “did something ever happen to you?”

“When I was in middle school,” Sean said, recalling the memory, “it became a really big rumor that I was gay. I don’t know where it started, and at that time, I hadn’t been interested in anybody like that, guys or girls. It was just some whisper of a thing that snowballed and got out of control. Somebody said they saw me and my best guy friend together in the same bathroom stall, and everybody just believed it. It ruined our friendship.”

“Did you get bullied for it?” Finn asked.

“It was weird because it both was and wasn’t bullying,” Sean said. “It was almost like one of those family secrets that no one wants to talk about. I became the elephant in the room at school, like people didn’t know what to say to me anymore. I lived in a small neighborhood, so there weren’t really any gay kids that were out, and at that age, most of us didn’t know much about sexuality at all. It really fucked me up for a little while. I felt so abandoned.”

Their day continued through and through, Sean and Finn chasing after Daniel as he ran to each and every exhibit excitedly, always stopping to read the plaques of information put out for the animals. Sean knew he’d be hearing animal facts from his brother for at least the next two weeks after this.

Eventually, they merged back with the others and decided to stay together this time, Penny kind of taking Daniel off their hands by engaging him in conversations about everything that he’d seen that day, and Sean was grateful to have the little break so he could hang back a bit and talk to Finn without worrying that Daniel would be privy to their conversations.

“I know this is… _none_ of my business, in any way,” Sean said, while they were standing near some snowy owls, using his hands to speak his good intentions, “but, do you know where your dad is?”

“Yeah,” Finn said, pursing his lips, “I do.”

Sean bowed his head to encourage Finn to continue, allowing him to take the reigns on the conversation, much like how a therapist would; not that he ever wanted Finn to think he was analyzing him, or anything. He just knew that Finn needed to say these things for himself. A few raindrops fell from the sky and landed on the skin of Sean's face. He hoped it wouldn't start pouring.

“He's probably somewhere out in Stockton Cemetery, back home, though I’m sure parts of him are still blasted all over the walls of our living room. Blood’s a hell of a thing to clean up.”

Sean said nothing to this. What could he really say? He just stared, and thought about those raindrops. He looked at Daniel talking animatedly to Penny. He swallowed harshly. 

“Suicide,” Finn stated, when he noticed the look of struck awe plastered on Sean's face like a mask. “Fucker couldn’t live with himself, I guess. Whatever.”

“Finn, that’s…that’s horrible.” Sean put his hands out on the railing in front of him as they stood, bracing himself on it as a distraction, just focusing on the way the coolness of the metal felt under his palms.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Finn said with a vague shrug, scraping his shoe around on the pavement beneath them. “I’m not…it doesn’t matter.”

Sean studied Finn’s face, searching it from corner to corner to make sure he was really as okay as he claimed to be. He reached out his hand tentatively to grab Finn’s, and squeezed it lightly to let him know that he was there for him, and that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Just because he wasn’t a good person,” Sean said, “doesn’t mean you can’t regret his death.”

“Yeah.” Finn bit his lip and shook his head doubtfully. “Well that doesn't make a lotta sense, now, does it?”

“Well,” Sean said, moving his mouth from side to side in thought, “maybe it doesn’t have to make sense. I know it sucks, but, feeling upset or confused about him dying is totally normal. You’re not weird for it, or anything.”

For a moment, Finn’s walls fell, and Sean could see the man behind the curtain. The boy. The forgotten child. The person inside of Finn who was hurt, hurting…never healing. For the briefest flash, he felt like he could see into Finn the way that Finn always seemed to see into him. A fragile sense of transparency that laid bare his true feelings, the ones he always hid.

And then, it was gone. And the Finn he knew returned with his usual banter.

“Good talk, bro,” Finn said jokingly, feigning a weak punch to Sean’s shoulder, which was obviously intended as an end to this conversation. Sean did not laugh.

Finn jogged on ahead of him to catch up with the others. Sean stood still, watching him in abject silence. He said nothing.

 

On the bus ride back home – well, as much “home” as the woods could be – they were all pretty worn from having walked around for those hours they stayed, and everybody was kind of quiet. It was comfortable, but definitely not as lively as they had been on the way there that morning.

Daniel, however, seemed to be in even higher, more energetic spirits now than he had been in a long while. The break of routine had probably given him a lot of energy, and had made him quite a bit happier.

“Sean, we should go find mom,” Daniel said in the middle of a long rant about what they should do next. He was yet again sitting next to his brother, all but bouncing off the walls running on his high of having gotten to go somewhere new. “She could help us.”

“Daniel,” Sean sighed, “we don’t even know where she really is.” He avoided looking at his brother, instead leaning his cheek further into the palm of his hand where it rested on the window. He didn’t want to give him any false hopes. “She only put her P.O. box on the letter. Not even a real address.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Finn apprehending him, where he was watching Sean and Daniel’s conversation curiously, but not interfering. Despite being the one _in_ the conversation, Sean felt on the outs. Finn just always seemed like he knew more than Sean at any given time, or rather, provided a different perspective on situations that Sean had never considered before. Sean always felt quite like an ant being burned beneath a microscope around Finn.

What humans were to ants, and what God was to humans, Finn was to Sean. Forests for the trees.

Sean furrowed his brow near imperceptibly at Finn, but the latter boy just grinned slightly and then returned his gaze back to his own window, not giving away what he was really thinking.

Whatever was on the other boy's mind was a mystery. And Sean had to accept that he didn't have the key to the puzzle of Finn's thoughts. Didn't have the map to the Labyrinth.

 

Back at camp, Daniel had asked to go down to the lake and lay out on blankets to watch the stars, but most of the others had decided to retire to bed since they were pretty tired from the long day. The sun was just about all the way down, and everybody was ready to check out, which was surprising for a group of teenagers for whom the sun never set, the party never stopped.

Finn agreed to basically anything, Sean had come to learn. So as the others all clocked out for the night, Finn agreed to join them down at the lake, where they brought blankets with them to lay out beside the water. Daniel went on to spend a good little while hunting for frogs and then excitedly bringing them over to Sean and Finn to show them before releasing them back into the water.

“Can I have some hot chocolate, Sean?” Daniel eventually asked, putting his hands together in a plea. “Please?”

“Is it gonna keep you up all night?” Sean asked in a faux stern voice, acting all parental on purpose, just to tease his brother.

“No!” Daniel said defensively, but then his face fell, and he added, “Maybe…”

“I’m just messing with you, enano,” Sean said with a laugh, reaching over to mess up Daniel’s hair. “Of course you can.”

“Oh! Sean!” Daniel sat up excitedly from where he lay on his stomach on the blanket, his hands out in the grass beside him, pulling the blades through the gaps between his fingers. “Can Finn have hot chocolate too?” He grabbed onto Finn’s shoulder in reference, and Finn gave a wide smile in anticipation.

“Why Finn specifically? Why not just ask if we're both having some with you?” Sean asked, pretending to be suspicious but just really wanting to hear what Daniel would say. He glanced at Finn’s face and the other boy gave him a quick wink before licking his lips and waiting for Daniel to explain.

“Because we’re friends again!” Daniel exclaimed. “Or, well, we weren’t ever _not_ friends, but, um, he’s cool, and I think he should have hot chocolate too.” Daniel spoke a thousand miles a minute half the time, trying to catch his mouth up to the speed of his brain.

Sean laughed at Daniel’s antics, then said, “Sure thing. Why don’t you get set up? I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Here, I’ll come help you,” Finn said, pushing up from his spot on the grass and joining Sean on his venture to the kitchen before he had a chance to accept or deny his aid.

On their way to the kitchen, Sean and Finn just casually discussed the day's activities and Daniel's newfound energy. Sean was glad that Daniel was so close with Finn, and that he had given up on his suspicions. 

Once they were there, Finn set out three mugs on the counter, picking each of their favorites (Daniel’s being a quirky little one they’d found at a thrift store that had a bunch of mushroom doodles on it alongside a recipe for cream of mushroom soup, chosen for obvious reasons), and then turned to lean against the counter, surveying Sean as he languidly filled a pot of water.

“Rough day at the office, sweetie?” Finn asked, obviously having picked up on Sean’s tiredness. He was starting to get that slight buzz in his head that only came when he knew he needed some rest, a dull sting behind his eyes, centered at the bridge of his nose.

“Just tired, is all,” he said, offering a small smile to let Finn know he was alright. “Love him to death, but…you know.”

Finn chuckled lowly, his arms crossed over his chest as he pushed a rock around under his sneaker. “All too well," he said.

They returned to Daniel with the hot chocolate, and stayed talking for a little while, Daniel drinking about half and then seeming to forget about it. He chased lightning bugs around with Finn, and then they had a stone-skipping contest, Daniel naturally winning because of his powers giving him practically unbeatable skills. 

After a while, though, Daniel started yawning more frequently, and his eyes fell tiredly closed. “I think I’m ready to go to bed, Sean," he said, stretching his arms out like a cat. "Could we go?”

“If you go to bed now," Sean said with his brow raised, " then you won’t be able to get your present.”

“Present?” Daniel perked up, his eyes widening. Sean felt a twinge of sadness at the way his brother had reacted, as if he’d expected to go his birthday without any gifts.

“Yep," Sean said. "I have it with me, right here.”

“What is it?”

From inside his bag, which he'd kept with him for this purpose exactly, Sean pulled a stuffed animal version of a red panda, having bought it for Daniel after he’d been so infatuated with them at the zoo.

“It’s for me?” Daniel asked, his eyes wide with so much love that Sean didn’t think he was worthy of receiving. Dan reached out to gently accept it into his arms, as if it were real and he’d accidentally hurt it if he wasn’t careful. “It’s the cutest thing ever, Sean. I love it.”

Daniel leaned over the blanket to his brother and gave him a tight hug, not letting go until he had gotten his fill of brotherly love. Once he’d had enough, he sat back on his blanket and held the panda securely in his lap.

“Actually, little man,” Finn said, getting into his own bag, “I got you something too.”

“Really?” Daniel asked excitedly, peering around Finn to see what it was.

“Yep,” he said, pulling something from a front bag pocket. It was a light purple stone that glimmered in the moonlight in hidden sheets of a galaxy rainbow.

“Is it a stone?" Daniel said excitedly. "What kind is it?”

“It’s called fluorite," Finn said. "It’s the Pisces stone, since that’s what you are. The card says, ‘Exceptional for clearing mental fog, distortion, and illusions, fluorite becomes medicine for every dreaming Pisces. Helping to dissolve mental confusion, it gifts the user with the ability to work through every situation and problem methodically, as opposed to drowning in the emotional tides that can sweep a person under.’ So, there you have it.”

“Do you think it’ll really work?” Daniel asked curiously, obviously looking to Finn for confirmation of whether or not this was true.

“I think if you want it to, it will,” Finn said kindly. “Here, take it like this.” He grabbed both of Daniel’s hands gently into his own, and then placed the stone into his palm. He closed Daniel’s hands around it, and then said, “Now open up a little space, and blow on it. If you warm it up a little, the magic’ll activate, and then, it’ll keep you safe.”

Daniel pulled both of them to him so he could hug them both at once, pressing his face into their shoulders, and said, “You guys are the best ever.”

“Happy birthday, Daniel," Sean said.

Sean wasn’t sure for how long they stayed out there, at least a couple of hours, since by now, the sun had entirely vanished along the tree line, and the sky had been illuminated by millions of stars like someone had spilled glitter in the cosmos. But there was an undeniable peace out there, like time had stopped, like they were trapped in a stilled photo which captured this moment in grateful hands to stay with them in their hearts.

Forever, in a perfect world.

         

They headed back to camp around eight-thirty, Daniel having nearly fallen asleep on their shared blanket by the water. Once Sean had seen how sleepy he’d gotten, he became aware of the same feeling in himself, and suggested that they head back. It’d been a pretty long day for all of them. Though hopefully a good one, at that.

“Sean?” Daniel spoke quietly as they walked back along the trail, rubbing his eyes with balled fists. “Can you carry me? My legs are tired.”

Before Sean could reply, Finn stepped in front of Daniel and said, “I can take you, little man. Come on.”

While Finn knelt down, Daniel hopped up onto his back and the older boy carried him piggyback-style the rest of the way.

Somewhere inside, Sean felt a twinge of something that might’ve been jealousy, but he wasn’t sure what of, exactly. Or whom of. He watched them as they walked together, whispering things in a conversation that Sean wasn’t apart of, and even though he spent nearly all his time with Daniel, he still felt pretty protective of him whenever they were even slightly apart.

“I’m glad you’re with us, Finn,” Daniel said sleepily, his head rested on Finn’s shoulder. “I feel better with both of you, like I have two brothers, instead of just one.”

Or maybe he was jealous of Finn's attention to his brother. Not that his brother was competition in that sense, obviously, but he still felt like they were competing for it in any case.

“We’re just a band of thieves, teenage runaways,” Finn said, “and we can do whatever we want out here.”

Entering back into camp, Finn and Daniel were a few feet ahead of Sean, and were headed straight for Sean and Daniel’s tent so he could deposit Daniel off and say goodbye to him for the night.

“Sean?” Cassidy’s soft Southern drawl came from somewhere behind him. She stepped out from where she'd been leaning on a nearby tree and said, “Can we, uh, walk and talk for a minute?”

He turned to see her near the kitchen, wringing her hands absentmindedly and then ushering her head in the direction of the lake again. He was surprised to see her still up. Her eyes trailed behind him as Daniel and Finn headed off in the opposite direction, and she seemed to be waiting for them to pass before she said anything else.

He nodded at her request, said, “Yeah,” but furrowed his brow in question of what it was that she needed to say to him.

They walked quietly back the way Sean had just come from, and didn’t speak for a few moments. Cassidy seemed to be wanting to create a certain distance between them and anybody else before she spoke.

Once they’d gotten far enough away, into the first clearing, she finally did so.

“So I had an interesting conversation with Daniel this morning, before we left for the zoo,” she said, and Sean groaned humorously.

“Did he do something wrong?” he asked, not thinking much of it but still curious to hear what she had to say. He looked off into the infinite stillness of the woods around them, taking in the crisp smell of Springtime leaves in California.

“Not exactly,” she said, pausing inbetween her words to decide how to go forward. “We were down picking up the laundry off the line near the lake, and there were some old porno magazines down there, near the landfill, and I told Daniel not to look at them, to be responsible and such, and he says, ‘Who cares about people fucking anyway?’”

Sean stopped walking and nearly burst out laughing in the middle of the path. Cassidy stopped a few feet ahead and turned around to face him, a huge smile of her own plastered on her face.

“He said that?” Sean asked incredulously, reaching a hand up to his forehead and shaking his head. “Oh my God, Daniel. Jesus Christ.”

“Now,” she said, trying to hold back her laughter to speak, “it was really hard not to start laughin’ because I just could not believe those words came outta his mouth. But I set him straight, told him not to talk like that no more.”

Sean shook his head in disbelief, not that he didn’t believe her, because he definitely did, but just at the ridiculousness of it. Daniel is as Daniel does, as usual.

“I think maybe you should talk to him,” Cassidy said, her smile lowering slightly as she took on a more serious note. “If not about sex, just about boundaries, and, y’know, just steering him in a direction that’s a li’l bit…cleaner.

“Give a sex talk to my ten-year-old brother?” Sean scoffed humorously, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them again. “My ten-year-old brother who also happens to be Daniel? I think I’d rather die on the spot.”

Cassidy patted him on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look, saying, “He’s gonna learn about it from the wrong places if you aren’t the one who tells him, living on the road like this. Do ya really want him to frame his sexual knowledge around what he hears from strangers who don’t give a damn?

“No, I guess not.” Sean conceded, shaking his head as he looked at the ground. “You’re right. As usual.”

“You’re all he has,” she said, “Just do right by him.”

 

By the time they'd settled in, it was just past nine, still somewhat early in the evening, all things considered. And since it was a Saturday, as well as Daniel’s birthday, Sean wasn’t being too much of a hardass about getting him to sleep on time. He only wanted what was best for Daniel, both mentally and physically, but being the parent _and_ brother was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. So _fucking_ hard. He’d never appreciated just how much their dad really did for them until he had to turn around and start doing it all himself.

Putting Daniel to bed, comforting him when he had nightmares, making sure he was getting enough to eat, drinking enough water, taking care of cuts and bruises – all of this stuff added up so quickly that he found himself lost in the middle pretty fucking fast.

In their tent, Daniel was sitting up on his sleeping bag, sleepily drawing a little something in his notebook before bedtime. Sean could tell that his brother was tired by the way his eyes remained so loosely fixed on the paper, how his breathing slowed, how he was slowly rocking from side to side, lulling his own self to sleep.

“Alright. Um.” Sean blew out a breath of air. “I need to talk to you.”

“Is something wrong?” Daniel asked, lowering his pencil worriedly and looking up at his brother, who was noticeably discomforted by something.

“ _No_ ,” Sean said a bit too quickly. “Well…not really. No. Okay. Hold on. Let me start over.”

Sean put his hands together in front of him and took a deep breath before speaking again. Daniel waited patiently.

“So…you’re ten, now,” he said carefully, choosing his words as deliberately as he could.

Daniel nodded, with a bit of curious question, saying, “Yes?”

“And you said that you wanted me to tell you things now, things that I couldn’t tell you when you were nine.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Shit, this is hard.” Sean rubbed his face with his hands, then looked back up. “Okay. So…you know, how people…” Sean cringed outwardly. “You know…sex. It’s a thing.”

Daniel’s face immediately fell and his eyes widened like balloons. “Oh, no…Sean,” he said, shaking his head defensively and putting his hands over his ears. “ _No_. I’m not listening.”

“Daniel,” Sean sighed, reaching over to pull Daniel’s hands off from his ears. “You said you wanted me to treat you like an adult. So act like one.”

“Ugh…fine,” he conceded, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at the floor of the tent. Sean assumed that when Daniel had asked to _know things_ when he was ten, he hadn’t meant this. At the very least, Sean sympathized with how much this was gonna suck.

“I want you to hear about this from me,” he said, “so you don’t hear it from somebody else first.”

“I know what sex is,” Daniel said matter-of-factly, as if that would nix the conversation right in the bud then and there. He looked off to all sides of the tent except for at Sean, as if a secret escape hatch would miraculously open up and sweep him away.

“Okay,” Sean nodded, taking a few seconds to think where he’d take this next. “Let’s start there, then. Um…you know that it’s private. And, um…personal. And anyone involved has to make sure that they all really want to be there, that they’re all _consenting_. That’s an important part. Consent. Don’t ever do anything you don’t want to.”

“I’m _not_ having sex,” Daniel asserted strongly, arms still crossed over himself to give a sense of separation of him from Sean. He spoke with a kind of biting defense. “That’s gross.”

“No, good,” Sean nodded encouragingly, trying to make Daniel feel like he was on the right track, make him feel more like this was a conversation, and not just Sean talking and Daniel listening. “You better not be. I’m just saying to keep it in mind as you…get older.”

“I will. Are we done?” Daniel asked impatiently, making a move to get up to try and escape from this embarrassment before Sean could stop him.

“No,” Sean sighed, reaching out to gently grab Daniel’s arm and usher him back down. “Not yet.”

Daniel sat back down dramatically, letting Sean know how much he absolutely didn’t want to be there, rolling his eyes and looking up at the ceiling. He grabbed his little Power Bear figure that he’d gotten from the claw machine months prior at the gas station and started to fidget with it as a distraction. Him doing so reminded Sean how young he was. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea.

“Um…so…sex can be between people of any gender,” Sean explained, wringing his hands awkwardly while speaking. “Um…so, guys can be together, and girls, and whoever else. It works differently; I’m not gonna talk about that, though. But just, so you know that it exists. But, if you have any questions, any at all, I can answer them.”

Daniel listened carefully, but didn’t respond right away, so Sean continued.

“But,” he said, “just, caring about the other person is important. And that’s what matters. Safety and care.”

“What about love?” Daniel asked, stuttering over the word _love_ like it was a secret one, one meant only for adults, perhaps, as if adults were apart of some secret club of knowing this “love” thing that Daniel wasn’t yet invited to. “Are love…and sex…the same?”

“Not necessarily-”

“So I don’t need to be in love to have sex?”

Sean fumbled mentally, not sure how to backtrack on that one. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up. Now he’d backed himself into a corner of this discussion that even he didn’t know how to get out of.

“No, wait,” he said, sucking his lips into his mouth briefly and then releasing them alongside a sigh. “That isn’t…that isn’t what I meant. I just meant, um, that it’s important to care about the other person.”

“But not love them?”

“Could we move on from the love question?” Sean pleaded, and Daniel seemed to respond sadly, his face falling slightly in rejection. “I don’t know how to answer it.”

Daniel shook his head, which was hung lowly, saying, “You said I could ask whatever I wanted to.”

“Yeah…I did," Sean nodded. "But you stumped me on that one.”

“I thought you knew everything.”

“Everything…but that.”

“Okay,” Daniel nodded, processing Sean’s words and the conversation. He resituated himself where he was sitting crisscrossed, and looked down at his clasped hands, picking at a Band-Aid on his finger. “Um…Sean?”

“Yeah?”

Daniel didn’t answer right away, still just looking down and seeming to search for the courage to ask what he was thinking. Sean let him think, knowing that asking questions like these were tough, and embarrassing.

“What does it feel like to have sex?” he asked finally, peering up at Sean for just a quick moment, and then looking back down.

“Um…” Sean started, awkwardly dodging around the subject. He wasn’t sure what boundaries there should be set here. He didn’t want Daniel to feel like he couldn’t talk to him about these things, but he wasn’t sure what was too much. “I think that’s a little too much…um…I mean I don’t know, and I don’t know if we should talk about that. Maybe, when you’re older.”

“Okay,” Daniel looked down embarrassedly, his face getting redder by the second. “Sorry.”

“Anything else?”

“If…if you like somebody,” Daniel asked, “do you _have_ to have sex with them?”

“Oh, no, definitely not,” Sean said, and Daniel nodded, listening attentively. “You can care about someone and not want that. And that’s perfectly fine.”

There was nothing more said for a few moments of pause, and Sean wondered if Daniel might’ve checked out of the conversation. He was about to end it there, to spare his brother any more of this nail-pulling torture, but then Daniel spoke again.

“So…guys can be together?” he asked curiously, not looking up at Sean but seeming a bit more curious about the topic.

“Yes,” Sean said encouragingly of Daniel asking questions. “And…and girls…and anybody else. Gender isn’t, um, isn’t a factor in the…physicality of…yeah.”

“How do they have sex if they don’t have the same parts?” Daniel asked. “Like for making babies.”

“It’s, uh…kind of the same way as other people.” Sean tried to quickly come up with a PG way to explain it. “They kiss, hug…intimate things."

“I don’t think I want sex for a long time,” Daniel said, shaking his head nervously, and Sean nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Great. That’s perfect.”

“Sean?” Daniel asked quietly. “Um…never mind.”

“What is it? If you have a question, it’s okay to ask.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

Sean sighed. “I think we’re past that point.”

“Oh…alright,” Daniel said. “Um.” He kept picking at his hands, his jeans, tapping his fingers around rapidly, then dropping them. “Sometimes…um…my penis gets…bigger. Does that have to do with sex?”

“It does. But, not at your age. So, just…it’s something private, for just you, and never let anybody else touch you without your permission, or even _with_ it, at this age. When you’re by yourself, you can…” He made a vague motion downwards. “Take care of it, if you want to. Um. Masturbate, yeah.”

“Okay,” Daniel said awkwardly, pulling the corners of his hair towards his face to hide behind. “I, um, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Alright, so…you good? Was that, enough? Was that okay?”

“Yeah, I…thank you, Sean. For talking to me, about it.”

“Yeah, you got it. One more thing, though,” Sean said, taking a deep breath before breaching this topic. “If somebody did something to you that you didn’t like, you’d tell me, right?”

“Like, sexual stuff?”

“Yeah, just…um…if that happens, please, _please_ , tell me.”

All that was on Sean’s mind was what Finn had confided in him, days prior, and the constant reminder that he had been Daniel’s age when it happened was burned into his skin like a brand. Now every time he looked at his brother, he just thought about him being hurt like that. And how nothing else in the world made him angrier. He’d burn the world to the ground if anybody ever touched him.

Once they’d finally lain down to get to sleep, the two of them were quiet for a while, and Daniel was cuddled up with his stuffed animal. The tent was darkened now, as Sean had blown out their lantern.

“Hey, Daniel?” Sean said quietly, in the case that Daniel had fallen right to sleep. “I think I have an answer now, for your love question.”

“You do?” he asked curiously, turning onto his side to look at Sean, awaiting the answer to his wonderings.

“Yeah.” Sean looked upwards, through the tent, imagining the generous night of stars that was sure to be thriving right above them, where they could not see. “I think all you need to know about is not forgetting that you deserve to be loved, as much as you love someone else.”

“Thank you, Sean.”

“You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the Low Anthem's song of the same name, _Lover Is Childlike_ , from _The Hunger Games._
> 
> Red pandas represent sensitivity and gentleness of the soul, which fits Daniel's childlike disposition.


	6. Hold On To Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the plot begins to deepen, I'm going to stop putting in summaries, as I'm sure that if you're already this far in, you're invested enough to keep reading regardless. Thank you so much everyone; it means the world.

Sometimes Sean went to a bad place.

Thought about things he shouldn’t.

It was a slippery slope, one with no traction to catch himself if he fell. Falling, rising, falling, rising. But never reaching the top or the bottom. Forever trapped in an eternal _almost, but never quite,_ and always left wanting more.

He didn’t want to feel these things, didn’t want to think of them, but at the same time, they felt _so good_ to feel. Like if you lived your life expecting that you’d inevitably die young, then nothing can touch you, because you’ve all but convinced yourself that nothing matters anyway.

He didn’t want to die, though. Don’t go thinking that. No.

He wanted to live through this pain.

And _feel_ it.

Daniel had awoken early in the morning one day, near the end of the week. He’d vacated the tent to go have breakfast with the others, leaving Sean all alone, which was an opportunity rarely afforded to him these days when he and Daniel had practically become attached at the hip.

Sean lay there in bed, mostly awake but not wanting to rise yet, and stared up at the top of their tent, which was as plain as it always was, but somehow felt a lot closer that morning, closing in, soon to completely eclipse him with how suffocating this space really was.

He didn’t like what he was thinking about, but those thoughts, they never really go away. Once they’re there, they can never be fully eradicated from your mind. Years on, they’ll always have been there, seeping in like a sickness, a slow, venomous wound that only gets worse over time, should it go untreated. And what did he have more of…than too much time.

He’d picked up the little switchblade months back, after they’d been on their own for a while, sometime early winter, last year. He held it now, loosely in his hand, fully drawn, and poked the tip of his finger into the end of the blade as he played absentmindedly with it from where he lay. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to feel the sharpened point.

This wasn’t like him, he told himself, he’d never be like…like… _those_ people. Those people who did things like that. But, here he was. So what, then, was the difference between he and them? Someone with a mental illness taking over them, causing a dangerous addiction to pain…and Sean.

 _It’s because I’ll know when to stop_ , he thinks. And, maybe that’s true.       

Or maybe it isn’t.

He could never be one of those people; because those people weren’t in control. And he was. He knew he was. Other people could be capable of those things, but Sean couldn’t. He knew he was different from them. Knew that no matter what he did, he would always find a way to work through it.

Convinced himself that it was them versus him. As if everyone else existed in some kind of _other_ category, a category of people who were vulnerable to their own mind. Not like him, he said. Not. Like. Him.

In a test, perhaps to see if he was really close enough to the edge to make the cut, he lay the blade against the skin of his inner left arm lightly, brushing the sidelines of fear to push their barriers. It was a pendulum, swinging closer and closer to complete mental breakdown, but he had to make sure that he wasn’t there just yet.

If fear overrode his need to escape, then he was still grounded in reality.

After his mom had died, his dad tried to get him into therapy. But he all but refused to make it work for him. _I don’t need that_ , he’d say, as if it were a choice you could actually make, to get better. As if you could just will yourself to become healthy again in your mind. When your mind is the thing that’s sick, it can’t heal itself. Like saying you’ll sew back on a severed hand with the same hand that was cut off.

When he slid it across his skin, it stung like a papercut, and made him clench his hands, pushing his nails into the center of his palms to distract from the feeling. If he kept seeing it as experimental, he could convince himself it wasn’t such a bad thing to do. Everybody tried it, sometime in their life. Right? Once, when he was younger, he’d unscrewed the blade out of a pencil sharpener, but then found that he was too afraid to press it deep enough to cut himself, given the thick bluntness of it, so he gave up.

Guess he wasn’t too afraid anymore.

Bubbled gems of blood appeared along the cut on the surface of his skin like stilled and scattered raindrops, and he watched them, thinking about how that blood had been beneath the surface of his skin moments prior, probably moving along his bloodstream and traveling to a different part of his body. But he’d halted that movement, and now, here it was, outside of where it belonged, never to be returned from where it had once been.

When he heard the sound of leaf-crunching footsteps approaching the tent faster than he could process them, he dropped the knife and hastily covered it with his blanket, pulling the sheet over his arms to hide them from view of whoever was approaching.

“Wakey wakey, sweetheart,” Finn teased, pushing his head into the tent, surveying the perimeter inside as if Sean had anywhere to hide. “Time to rise and grind and all that shit.”

Sean swallowed, pushing the knife further beneath the surface of his sleeping bag, and said weakly, “Yeah, hey…good morning.” He gripped his right hand over his left wrist where he’d cut to keep it from bleeding out.

Finn quirked his head to the side with a small smile, as if he was thinking Sean was acting purposely strange, maybe as a joke to be silly. He waited for a moment to regard Sean, in the case he’d say something else, but ultimately let it go and then said, “We’re all gettin’ ready to go. Don’t wanna be late.”

His head disappeared from the tent, and Sean could hear the sounds of his sneakers retreating, cracking on sticks and twigs quietly as he walked away.

Sean flopped back onto his pillow and held his wrist up to where he could see it.

The blood had smudged along his left forearm now, and on the inside of his right palm. Somehow, following the initial panic that he’d just done something he couldn’t take back, that feeling began to fade away, and that familiar sense of emptiness set in again. The adrenaline was falling just as rapidly as it had risen, and he wanted to feel it again.

From down the path outside, the horn of Big Joe’s truck rang out to signal everyone to get over there, and Sean quickly pulled himself back to reality. He didn’t know where he’d gone just then, and he didn’t know if he wanted more or less of it.

He grabbed a discarded towel from nearby that’d been used a few nights prior to clean up some water Daniel had spilled, and covered it over his arm to try and wipe away what he could. He’d either have to wash it really well later, or abandon it in the landfill near the lake. He felt kind of ridiculous now that his curiosity had been sated, but there was nothing he could do. He’d already made the cut, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

Hastily, he tossed the towel beneath his sleeping bag and then pulled his hoodie on overtop to cover his arms. He was grateful to have gotten it back from Finn the night before. His reliance on having those long sleeves on-hand was part of the reason he’d gone through with trying what he had. Because he knew he’d be able to cover it up.

Before joining the others at the truck, he popped over into the kitchen and quickly bandaged up his arm with some white gauze, and then sped off down the trail to where the others were.

 

On the truck ride to the plant, Sean didn’t talk to anyone at all. He wasn’t upset, per se, but he felt much like there were no words in his mouth. He felt quiet, distant, like even if he’d wanted to speak, he wouldn’t be able to. Something about today had made him feel so alone.

Daniel was speaking about the plot of some cartoon he used to watch to Penny and Hannah, thumbing the amethyst necklace that Cassidy had made for him for his birthday by tying it into a cradle of light brown twine like a cocoon to keep it in place.

Beside Daniel was Finn, as usual.

This boy, with all the intrigue Sean felt was naturally imbued in him – in the way he walked with this confident indifference, the way his skin was just lightly freckled enough to tease the idea of having been outside, the way his hair was reddened from being in the sun all day – it was all everything Sean wanted to be near.

It was a kaleidoscope of color, all the time. Auburn hair, pale skin, blue eyes. Never had one person been so intrinsically linked to how he appreciated the colors of the world. The greens and browns of the redwoods that surrounded their camp, the blue sky above them that watched down with its clouds like the eyes of God. The white of the gauge Sean now wore on a string around his neck that he absentmindedly held onto and used as a worry stone, the same twin gauge that Finn now wore every day. Perfectly matched in a set.

Olfactory senses trigger the strongest response in human’s ability to recall a specific place or person. And he had those, too. Leathery hemp that clung to Finn’s clothes like it was meant for him, campfires burning on him like he lived in an eternal flame. Laundry washed down at the lake and pipe smoke mixed with soft pine was all that Sean wanted to smell for the rest of his life from here on out, and he’d even cried once, thinking that one day this would all be gone, and the scent of Finn would be wiped away forever. He smelled like warmth, like the sun, and when he was away from Sean, so went an eternal summer with him.

When you hold onto something too closely, it can start to wither away in your hand. And Sean feared the day he may hold on too tightly, and Finn would tire of him, too, like all his other unnamed lovers, and fade from Sean’s touch like he’d been trying to capture sunlight in the palm of his hand.

Sitting off to the side and keeping his distance while the others laughed and seemed not to have a care in the world wasn’t Sean’s ideal hope for his inclusion in this group of potential friends, but it seemed to be growing increasingly difficult to keep up a socialized front. His energy drained with each day, and while it was wonderful to have this intimate community to return to, he sometimes felt suffocated, by himself, by them, by everything. He only wanted to be alone, but alone was not what he could be.

Even if it wasn’t true, they all gave off the distinct image of not caring about anything that could go wrong, and Sean wanted nothing more than to be a part of that world.

If he were a different person, he’d pick himself up and waltz right over there to them, plopping down in the seat beside Finn and joining the conversation. Maybe he’d engage the boy with talk of his past, his present, his future days. Be animated in the way that only Finn was, perhaps to impress on him some kind of relatability, as if they were kindred spirits.

But he wasn’t a different person. He was him. And him would never do that. Him would never have the confidence to act like that around someone he admired. Him would never become this person that didn’t exist, the one that he thought everyone wanted him to be, but never told him how to become.

At the plant, Sean was working indoors today, in Merrill’s kitchen, alongside Hannah, Finn, and Jacob. Daniel had finally been let outside to trim branches and shit, and Sean felt a bit better knowing that Cassidy was out there with him. Daniel might not always have been responsive to Cassidy's presence, sometimes complaining that she whined too much - probably due to Hannah's influence - but he seemed to be warming up to her slowly, enough that he would allow her to be motherly of him and not cause too much of a fuss. 

Inside, Hannah had been enthusing the others about her recent trip into town where she’d found the ingredients for some dish she’d like to cook for them that night, but Sean was barely listening. He was focusing as hard as could on the scissors in his right hand and the buds of cannabis in his left. He held those scissors so tightly he was afraid he’d break them.

“So, you gonna be outta here soon, sweetheart?” Finn asked, carefully holding up the buds in front of him like he was trimming Christmas tinsel. Sean released a bit of tension in his hand to calm his anxieties as he was spoken to.

“Yeah…” Sean said, but didn’t look away from his work. “Maybe. We almost have enough to go.”

“Cool, cool…” Finn nodded his head slowly. “So, uh, you think there’s any room in there for somebody as small and unimportant as me?”

“Finn, I kind of thought that was a given.”

“Awesome, perfect,” he said, but then left it at that as Big Joe came around the table and popped Finn on the back of the head with a rolled magazine.

“Dick,” he whispered, mostly to himself, but obeyed the silent order and didn’t speak again.

Sean had rolled his sleeves up while they worked, completely disregarding the fact that he had a mysteriously wrapped bandage around one arm. When he reached in front of his seat partner to wash off his scissors, Finn eyed the side of Sean’s wrist from where he sat at the table, but ultimately said nothing.

If this had been a cry for attention, Sean would’ve felt invisible.

 

Work ended sometime around seven that night, and when they all headed back, Finn seemed overly grabby, hanging off of Sean and sticking close by him.

Finn lightly bumped into Sean’s chest with both fists and said, “Let’s go have a smoke at the lake, eh?”

Penny offered to teach Daniel how to play jacks and marbles back at camp, so that was where the little brother got off to. More and more he seemed to be taking control of his own independence, and Sean didn’t know how to feel. He was afraid that Daniel might not need him soon, and even if Dan could be a huge butthead like _all the time_ , he was still the closest thing Sean had to a family anymore.

His only connection left to his dad. A little piece of his dad that he could be near, a piece that was still alive, that he could look at and remember every day.

And soon, that would be gone too.

Down at the lake, Sean and Finn had come alone, not asking anyone else to join them as they had intended to speak one-on-one, and though they didn’t say it out loud, they knew that it was true.

The two of them had seated themselves on the back of one of the couches near the water, Sean with his legs stretched out over the couch cushions, and Finn with one foot down on the cushions and the other leg crossed over that one.

It was a pretty warm night, but comfortable. Daniel would have a good night's sleep, Sean hoped. The kid always slept better when it was a little warmer, probably because it was comforting.

Finn noticed Sean's glassy gaze out at nothing in particular, and bumped his shoulder into him playfully, asking, "Somethin' on your mind?"

“Just watching the water,” Sean said with a small sigh, shrugging his shoulders dazedly.

“No, you’re not,” Finn stated with a hint of tease, and it wasn’t accusatory in any sense of the word. The boy simply just saw right through Sean immediately, and had no reason to pretend as though he didn’t. No amount of hiding could ever slip that boy’s intuition.

Sean lowered his eyes slightly and gazed up blankly at the trees on the opposite end of the lake for a moment – through them and into nothing – as they stood across from him in his immediate line of sight, green leaves flowing all around them as the winds blew.

“Thinking, then,” Sean offered, and his tone was noticeably distant, his voice a bit lost, and Finn let out a small humored noise at the sentiment.

To the right of him, Sean heard the crunching flick of a lighter being set aflame, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Finn lean his elbows onto his crossed leg. Sean looked over at him properly, and was met with a laidback inquisition from the other boy as he blew out a puff of smoke.

“About?” Finn asked, quirking a brow at Sean, awaiting an explanation for the boy’s strangely distant behavior all day.

“Hm…it’s private,” Sean said after a moment, deciding that it was best not to share the intricacies of his true thoughts, most of which he was shy to admit involved Finn, and everything that had gone down between them.

“So you won’t tell me?” Finn asked, still amusedly pestering Sean for what seemed like just a jest now.

“So I won’t tell you,” Sean stated, sounding direct, though still vaguely dissociated from their conversation.

Nighttime birds called out in song around them, and as the winds blew, so went the lake with it, creating a slow and somber rush in the air of moving water.

“So, uh, what’s goin’ on here?” Finn said, vaguely waving his hand in the general direction of Sean’s wrist, to which Sean shifted uncomfortably and moved that specific arm out of view.

“If you don’t want to tell me,” Finn said, looking back out at the water, “it’s cool. I’m not tryna push you.”

He let out another puff of smoke and then set his blunt down into an ashtray positioned nearby that he must've brought with him. He readjusted himself so that his legs were uncrossed and were both now down onto the couch cushions.

Seeing both ends of defeat here, and no way out, Sean carefully unraveled the gauze from his arm to reveal a splotchy red stain across it, with the cut in the middle. At worst, he was a fucking idiot for not treating it better medically.

He felt humiliated.

Finn just looked at it, nodded his head, and then looked away, taking a short breath from the weed and then blowing it out in front of them.

“You wanna see mine?” Finn asked, and Sean blanched.

Sean finally had the courage to look up. No. Not courage. Shock, maybe? Not that this revelation about Finn should be surprising in the slightest, given his life.

Finn moved his left leg forward, further into view of Sean, and then reached to pull his sock down, revealing his bare ankle. His bare ankle with about fifty slashed scars across it, overlaying one another as they’d been remade overtop old ones. They were all healed, some deeper than others, some barely visible.

Sean tentatively reached an unsteady hand out to touch the scars lightly, running his fingertips down to feel the ridged lines of uneven skin.

"I’m not trying to scare you,” Finn said, “but please don’t get into that shit. It’s a fucking hole you can’t get out of.”

“When was the last time?” Sean asked quietly, still looking at them and unable to part his eyes from the sight.

“Few years ago.” He clicked his tongue. “Most of these I did when I was like, thirteen, fourteen. Not the worst thing I’ve ever done, honestly, but fuck if it didn’t give me these scars to make sure I’d never forget it.”

Sean felt incredibly ashamed, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been and was now being given the opportunity to come forward, which was even worse than being overtly called-out.

“Not to be all, parental, or whatever…” Finn said, “but if Daniel knew you did that? Jesus.” He shook his head and Sean felt guilty at the disapproval…the disappointment.

Finn reached to pick up a long stick from the ground and poked into the bed of dirt near the water’s edge, picking up worms and looking at them, then placing them gently back down.

He was quiet for a few seconds, and then, very quietly, he muttered, “Don’t you _ever_ do that again.”

Finn had never sounded so broken up before, and Sean was almost afraid. His heart felt so hollow, like there was an unfixable void there that couldn’t be filled again, all because he’d hurt Finn.

“I’m sorry…” Sean put his head in his hands and pressed the hard ends of his palms into his eyes to soothe whatever distress lived behind them. “It was…it was stupid.”

“Yeah, well,” Finn sucked his lips in and shook his head in futile frustration. “Fucking…god…Sean, I don’t want that for you.”

He reached out to grab Sean’s arm gently, and brushed his thumb over the dried blood, keeping away from the cut so as not to disturb it.

“Don’t start what you don’t wanna finish,” he said, shaking his head and speaking more sternly. He let go of Sean’s arm. “It’s a fucking Labyrinth you’ll get lost in.”

He held his blunt with both hands, looking down at it and twirling it between his fingers. A few ashes fell off onto the couch seat.

“I’ve asked you before, and I’m asking again now. Am I a bad influence on you?”

“No,” Sean said defensively. “Never.”

Finn sighed, looking down at the ground helplessly, his dreads falling in his face and obscuring his eyes from view. “I don’t want you to be me,” he said.

He stabbed the end of the blunt into the ash tray and left it there, seeming to have lost his desire for it. Sean would have too, in this situation, his stomach turning knots over in on itself like a taffy pull.

“But hey, whatever. Right?” Finn said, patting his knees and huffing out.” It’s all good. Just bein’ dramatic, I guess. Fuck. I am a Scorpio, so, guess that’s just what we do…”

He stretched his legs out with a sigh so that the backs of his ankles touched the edge of the couch, then reached his arms above himself, hands clasped in a stretch. He sighed.

“Anyway, fuck it…” he said, “you ready to head back? Hannah’s making some…something, for dinner. So, uh, yeah. I think I’m gonna go.”

“You always do that,” Sean said seriously, not missing a single beat. “You always leave once you get scared.”

“Yeah…” Finn said, tapping the fingers of one hand against the knuckles of the other. “That’s how I deal with it. Didn’t you say I needed to keep you on your toes? Well, here I am, tiptoeing right down that line. Hope you can keep up.”

“Are you upset with me?” Sean asked, and Finn smirked, turning his gaze of direction to the moon, bright and white, reflective of life on Earth like a mirror.

“You’re too good for your own good, kid.”

And that’s all he said.

 

Sean wanted to stay in those moments where goodness reigned over the badness forever, before everything began, before this feeling was more than just so. When he was close – but not  _too_ close, and he could feel Finn in these spaces in-between without actually being physically near him. It had only taken one meeting for Sean to already want to give him everything, and he felt pathetic for thinking that way, felt pathetic that he’d so easily give up his own dignity to follow this stranger wherever he went. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew that he couldn’t talk about the way he felt to anyone.

He didn’t want to hold onto these times where they were dragged through the ringer, walking across broken glass just to talk to one another. He felt like every moment he spent with Finn was just another nail in the coffin of some inevitable fate that he didn’t understand.

He didn’t want Finn to know him. And yet, he did.

It had only been a few months, but Sean wanted everywhere with that boy, every place, every sight, every sound – and he wanted it all right now, and for the rest of his life. There was never a moment where he felt like Finn was a stranger to him, or that he was someone new to get to know. He already knew everything without knowing a single thing at all. He felt like there was nothing to get to know, because everything went known without speaking it.

And he wanted to drown in that.

Later that night, when Sean filled in his journal with the events of the day and the intimacies of his thoughts, the wind was blowing against his tent in the moonlight, creating shadows of the trees like underwater kelp. He then placed the open journal out before him and climbed out into the open air of the camp to head to the bathroom.

From those cool night breezes flowing overtop the pages of his journal through the unzipped tent, the contents of what he wrote were visible to anyone who may happen upon them, and they read, alongside small doodles from the day’s activities at work, and outside at the lake:

“…I shouldn’t have asked him if he was upset with me…” The wind blew the pages of the little book, then died down again upon a single sentence on the following page.

“What I really wanted to ask was if he hated  _himself…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving comments! Even if I don't respond, please know that I read and love every single one that I get and I'm so incredibly appreciative. I always worry that I sound a bit redundant saying thank you to each individual one, but please know that I am so grateful, and I love hearing what you think and have to say. We're really in the infancy of this ship, so we're all here together for a common purpose. To get this damn ship off the ground.


	7. Like Real People Do

In the far distance, past the forest and to the nearby highway that ran about a quarter of a mile from camp, a train’s whistle wailed through the skies in ambient chatter. Just as the birds and winds, these trains that passed by so frequently were as akin to nature's bounty as any other. 

Another day. Another story. Sean was relaxing amidst a bed of pillows at his usual spot beside Finn in the latter boy's tent, trying to sketch in his notebook, but really just gazing tiredly at the page, having woken up early to sneak away and have some time with Finn before Daniel got up. To his left, Finn was laying on his stomach, reading _Lord of the Flies_ , as he’d been working through the book for a few weeks now.

It was pretty chilly that morning, with rain most likely to find them by mid-morning. To keep out the cold, and for privacy, they had zipped up the tent to make the space a bit more intimate. It was cozy, perfectly warm from the plethora of blankets and the closeness of their bodies.

Outside, the smell of bacon and eggs wafted in the air and hit Sean’s nose, Cassidy and Penny being in the kitchen, making quiet sounds of clinking forks and plates as they cooked breakfast. Their laughs and hushed voices could be heard faintly in the background at Sean and Finn’s distance, and it was comforting, like when you've woken up the morning of a vacation to hear your family bustling around the house.

Sean scratched absentmindedly at the healing cut on his arm, now properly treated and bandaged (at Finn’s insistence, which Sean was grateful for). The other boy had assured him not to be embarrassed about it, but that hadn’t eased Sean’s mind as much as he wished it had. He felt like a phony, as if it were an insult to Finn with all his healed wounds and scars for Sean to have tried that. He must be as a child to Finn, trying things out in mimic of what he’d seen other people do, but not understanding the weighty meaning behind them, or the consequences.

In Finn’s world, these issues were very much real, and entirely understandable given his situation. He was a fighter, and Sean was amazed by this boy every single day. Sean would not afford himself that same forgiveness.

“Scratching it’s not gonna make it feel better,” Finn said, as if he could sense Sean’s actions with a third-eye, given that the other boy hadn’t even looked directly at him. Sean sheepishly halted his ministrations and went back to the drawing he’d been doing, pretending he hadn’t been caught.

Sean peeked at Finn from the corner of his eye and saw the other boy giving him this almost sly grin of knowing. Sean was grateful for the times when Finn didn’t probe him, and instead took on this kind of jovial seriousness that was easier to swallow, pointing out Sean’s issues with a tone of facetiousness, which eased the blow.

“Have you ever read this?” Finn asked in a more evenly positive tone, intentionally changing the subject to spare Sean the awkwardness of mentioning his cut. He lifted his book slightly in regard so Sean knew what he was referring to.

“Nah,” Sean said, focusing in on shading a particular shadow on his drawing. “Well…I kinda faked reading it back in ninth grade, if that counts. I skimmed it.”

“Sean Diaz,” Finn said dramatically, “were you neglecting your homework? For shame…”

“Hey, it’s a really long book!” Sean said in impish defense, and glanced over at Finn from the corners of his eyes to see the boy smiling at him bemusedly, leaning his cheek on the top of the pages so that his head was lolled to the side.

“I’m just messin’ with you,” Finn said with a goofy smile, reaching over to place two fingers beneath Sean’s chin in jest. “You’re so cute.”

“I know…” Sean said, shaking his head and returning to his art.

“Oh?” Finn pressed, brow raised and tone dipped in sarcastic intrigue. “You _know_ you’re cute?”

“No, no,” Sean said quickly, feeling himself grow flushed, “I meant I knew that you were joking.”

“Mhm…I think you know you’re cute. But _anyways_ ,” he said dramatically with a wide smile, to carry on their discussion. “Listen to this.” He read:

_The world, the understandable and lawful world, was slipping away…What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?_

“So,” Finn said, placing the book back down dramatically then and looking over at Sean, who was sitting comfortably beside him, running his pencil across the surface of his sketchbook. “What’s your verdict?” he asked, his tone theatrically exasperated, as though he were just doing so to get Sean’s opinion, despite already having one of his own.

“On whether we’re savages or human?”

“Yeah, wha’d’ya think?”  

Sean felt a smile coming on, pleased that Finn had asked his opinion on the topic, yet tried to hide his overjoy behind a soft expression which merely indicated that this was a friendly atmosphere – when in reality, his heart was warmed that Finn wanted to hear his thoughts on it.

“What do the kids say,” Sean asked, “in the book?”

Finn held the book back to his face again and searched for the passages he had marked and taken note of. “They say, ‘We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?’”

Sean took a moment to think, and Finn waited patiently, flipping through some other pages in the meanwhile.

“Maybe…” Sean began slowly. “Maybe they forgot what they wanted in the first place.”

Finn paused in a few moment's silence, weighing Sean’s words thoughtfully.

“So,” Sean continued, “whoever these boys were when they began, it’s different now. Through their circumstance, they lost their original purpose, and fell into bad habits. But, those bad habits could be argued as being primal instinct, like…being human.”

Sean saw Finn watching him very intently, and he felt very much like he was up on a podium being looked at by judging eyes.

“The boys are becoming everything that they were afraid of,” he said, “and who they were, when the book started…those boys are gone.”

He closed his sketchbook then, setting it off to the side and then resettling.

“And as for the adults…” he continued, “the boys thought that just acting like adults would make them into them. But, it isn’t possible. Because they don’t understand what it means to _be_ an adult. They’re only pretending.”

“Sounds like somebody I know,” Finn stated, giving Sean a small and bemused, yet genuinely appreciative smile. He spoke ever so earnestly, as if hit by a sudden revelation, and in a low and deep tone. This made Sean feel ill at ease.

Finn looked away.

“Somebody you know?” Sean inquired, curious as to what that meant. Though he was sure he already knew.

“Yes,” Finn confirmed. “Somebody I know.”

Sean looked away from him and then decided to settle down on his back, though he knew if he did, he might just fall asleep.

“What’s that smell?” Sean asked after a few moments of resting his eyes. “It’s kinda…sweet.”

“Oh!” Finn said, closing his book. “It’s a new strain.”

He held up a recently rolled blunt, twirling it between his thumb and pointer-finger. He took a hit and Sean watched him sleepily as he smoked.

Watching Sean watch him for a moment, a smile quirked on the edge of Finn’s lips and he held out the blunt to the other boy, who eyed it curiously. “Want to try it?” he asked, and Sean glanced up to meet his eyes.

Sean nodded and accepted it from Finn, placing it between his own lips and taking a drag. It kind of tasted like fruit, in a really intense way, like a shock. It was a feeling like eating mango with chili powder, like his dad used to make for them during the summer. Though he wouldn’t say so, he liked the thought of putting his lips on something that Finn’s lips had touched.

Finn watched Sean in sly admiration for a moment, then leaned back on his blankets and took a slow, relaxed breath. “I like seeing you wear that.”

“Hm?” Sean asked, looking down at himself to see what Finn could’ve been referring to.

“The necklace I gave you,” Finn said, one hand resting behind his head, the other loosely lain on his stomach, trailing absentminded circles. “I was worried you’d…think it was silly.”

Sean pulled the blunt from his lips, blowing smoke into the air, and said, “I’d never think it was silly.”

“Well, good, then…” Finn trailed off quietly, dashing the topic before it went anywhere.

Sean took another hit before handing it back to Finn, to which the latter boy asked, “Good?”

“Yeah,” Sean said, pleasantly surprised, “really good.”

“It’s called White Widow. Supposed to be, for like, euphoria and stuff.”

They smoked in silence for a little while, passing it back and forth and taking turns trying to blow smoke rings.

“Mm. Question,” Finn said suddenly, and Sean quirked up at it.

“Yeah?” he asked. Finn was playing with his dreads lazily, holding individual pieces up in front of his face and rolling them between his fingers.

“What would you do,” Finn said, “if you could do anything?”

“Hm…” Sean looked up above him and focused in for a genuine answer. “I’d really like to have my own gallery. Even if nobody ever came to it, I’d like to be able to put everything I’ve ever drawn in one place, so I could see it all.”

“Hey, _I’d_ come to your gallery.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sean said sarcastically and Finn pushed Sean’s knee with his foot, which Sean took a moment to regard.

“I like the tattoo,” he said, “on your foot.”

Across the length of Finn’s right foot, there was an intricate design painted in black lacy ink running from his ankle to toes, looping in a flowery, pretty way like a chandelier or the details of a snowflake.

“Oh!” Finn said, reaching down to run his hand along the covered skin. “Thank you. It’s supposed to be kinda like henna. I think I got it…nine-ish months ago?”

Finn did so many things that Sean would be terrified of, one of which being the frequent permanent marking of his body. Sean was afraid he’d regret too many changes, so the tattoo that Cassidy had given to him weeks prior had been a pretty big deal to him.

“What about you?” Sean asked, turning over to face Finn and leaning on his hand to prop his head.

“What about me what?” Finn asked, matching Sean’s eyes in a completely open way, like two oceans washing onto opposite sides of the same shore. He reached out with his free hand to grab Sean’s, linking them together between them.

“What you’d do, if you could do anything?”

“Oh yeah,” Finn said, “I wanna…get a one-way plane ticket to anywhere in the world, and then just, get off on the other end and run away, from everything.”

“Even from me?” Sean asked, giving him sad eyes, to which Finn rolled his own.

“Mmm… _maybe_ not you,” he said with a smile he hid. “Maybe.”

“Mhmm,” Sean said with a sarcastically raised brow, to which Finn wrapped himself around Sean like a koala.

“Oh, you know I love you…” he said, kissing the side of Sean’s closed lips. “You know I’d take you.”

Sean warmed at the sentiment, and he was glad for the low lighting lest Finn notice how his cheeks had grown pink from the contact.

“I love you is…te amo, right?” Finn asked, looking up to Sean’s face for confirmation. Sean liked the way Spanish sounded coming from Finn’s lips, and he wished the boy knew more. He’d been trying his best, though, with Sean giving him occasional phrases and words to practice, every now and then.

“Yeah,” Sean said, “but, saying te amo is…pretty intense. Say, te quiero, instead.”

“Why is te amo ‘pretty intense’?”

“It’s…really special,” Sean said, “in Hispanic culture. So, it’s safer to say te quiero until you're really, _really_ sure that you love someone. Throwing around te amo isn’t like I love you in English. It’s a whole different ballgame.”

“Well, what if I _do_ mean it?”

“Then, um…” Sean swallowed and darted his tongue out to lick his lips. “Then…I don’t know. I guess it’s okay.”

“Okay, then… _te amo_.”

Finn spoke that phrase into existence as if he had been the one to invent love. And perhaps it was true. With the way that that boy looked at Sean like he could weave miracles…maybe love was a creation of their own making.

But Sean didn’t say it back.

From outside the tent, there approached that unmistakable sound of softly crunching footsteps, ones which halted right outside the entrance, bringing with them the subtle shadow of perhaps a very short person.

“Sean, are you in there? I thought I heard your voice.”

It was Daniel.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Sean tried to not let his disappointment at having his hiding spot found out slip into his words. Finn raised his eyebrows teasingly at Sean, giving him a shrug to show that he also knew their secret hidey-hole had been found out. Finn untangled himself from Sean’s limbs and rolled back onto his own side of the tent.

Still laying down on his back with his head closest to the tent’s opening, Finn stretched his arms above his head to grab the zipper and pull it up, lazily attempting to open up for Daniel, but failing as he didn’t want to get up and do it properly. Sean reached over to grab the zipper from Finn’s grasp as he fumbled with it and undid it the rest of the way, revealing a tired looking Daniel standing outside in his pajamas with his red panda and a small blanket.

“Are you smoking in there?” Daniel asked immediately, the scent of weed probably wafting out from the opening now. “Can I try?”

“Nope. Not a chance. You’re too young,” Sean said, laying back down on his stomach with his arms crossed to hold up his chin. “And, you shouldn’t smoke anyway.”

“Ugh, that’s what you _always_ say.”

“Because I’m the big brother, and I have to look out for you.”

“C’mon, little man,” Finn said, looking at Daniel upside-down. “Cut him some slack. Your big bro’s just tryin’ his best.”

“Yeah, okay,” Daniel conceded stubbornly. “Sure.”

He stood there not saying anything for a moment, so Sean asked, “Did you need something?”

“Can I come in there with you?” Daniel asked quickly, as if he needed to get it out fast to make sure Sean couldn’t tell him no. “I had a bad dream.”

Sean hesitated for a moment, selfishly not wanting to give up the privacy that he and Finn shared here, like their own little world. But Finn spoke up first in the momentary pause, saying, “Of course you can! Get on in here; the more the merrier.”

Taking the invite, Daniel knelt down to crawl in, not having to crouch too much as he was naturally a bit shorter than them. He left his sneakers outside the tent, slipping out of them so as to not drag dirt in behind himself.

Immediately taking liberties in making himself feel right at home, Daniel lay out inbetween them and snuggled into the covers, trying to sandwich himself in the middle like a sardine.

“Better now?” Sean asked.

“Yes. Lots.”

“Well, I'm not. I'm feeling a little claustrophobic here, _Daniel_ ,” Sean said, purposely emphasizing the name of the boy who currently had his knee stabbed right into his brother's hip.  

Daniel giggled at Sean’s antics, and asked, “What’s claustrophobic?”

“It means he’s afraid of Santa Claus,” Finn said, and Daniel shot his head right back to look wide-mouthed at his brother.

“Really?” he asked, completely ready to believe it. Sean wondered if Daniel would go along with anything Finn said. 

Sean just rolled his eyes humoredly and played along, saying, “Yep, old men sneaking into people’s houses while they sleep really fucks me up.”

“Oh.” Daniel’s mouth turned into a little O. “I think I’m claustrophobic too, then.”

“I thought it was the Easter Bunny that scared you, Dan.”

“Hmph…not true!” Daniel said in a huff, and Sean laughed lightly, shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” Sean teased, “I seem to remember when you cried two years ago and said you never wanted to see him again.”

“Did not…” Daniel said, his voice falling in a defensive pout.

“I’m just messing with you, enano,” Sean said, pushing the hair out of the boy’s eyes. “The Easter Bunny _can_ be pretty scary.”

"So, Señor Daniel, what was this bad dream about?" Finn asked, and Daniel pulled the covers up to his chest to settle into the space between them.

"Well," he said, clasping his fingers together over his slowly-breathing chest. "I was running down this really long hallway, but no matter how fast I tried to go, I never got anywhere. And I remember thinking that if you were there, Sean, you would've been really fast, because you do track. Or, well, you _did_ do track, when we went to school. But anyway, it felt really real, like I remember having done that, at some point."

"Running down a neverending hallway?" Sean joked, but Daniel was serious.

"No, I mean...I just remember running in _a_ hallway. But I don't know why."

"I'm sure you probably just shouldn't have eaten so close to bedtime, Dan," Sean said, reaching out to brush loose pieces of Daniel's hair back into place.

"So I don't need to be scared?" he asked worriedly.

"Real life is already scary enough," Sean said, and Finn made a sound of agreement.

"Alright," Daniel said, shuffling onto his side and cuddling into his stuffed animal. "I'm gonna sleep now. But don't leave me alone again like you did this morning! I was so scared, Sean, when I woke up and you weren't there."

Sean rolled his eyes but couldn't help but smile. "I promise I won't."

         

Later that week, on a different day, Finn was sitting beneath the redwood trees of the camp with his book open against his knees. Sean sat on the edge of the lake with his feet in the water, watching Daniel as his brother waded around the shallow part in front of him, skipping stones. It was late in the evening, sometime past eight.

Sean wished that he could lean up against Finn, to lay there with him beneath the trees and pretend that nothing else existed. If it hadn’t been for the beauty of the scenery and fine weather that night, which buoyed his spirits, he may have otherwise sunken into a deep melancholia of his feelings.

He was sketching Finn as the teen sat there, up against the trees, Sean admiring the beauty of focus on the boy’s face, as if he was aging backwards when he was invested in his passions.

Cassidy approached the trio of them by way of the camp trail, carrying a tray of coffee in her arms, one for each of them. She set it on a nearby table that they’d found at a thrift store a few days prior, and passed everyone’s mugs out. For Daniel, however, she had prepared hot chocolate, his usual drink of choice as he fervently claimed coffee “tasted dirty”. Sean could’ve sworn Daniel’s blood ran thick with hot chocolate at this point.

“Feels good to just sit down,” Cassidy lamented, plopping herself to the left of Sean and holding her mug with both hands, taking a slow and savory sip.

“My hands’re rubbed so fucking raw from carrying all that shit today. Merrill really nailed into me for dropping that pot.”

“You almost shit yourself,” Sean said with a jovial shake of his head, recalling their day at work but still focusing on his drawing.

“You would have too! Don’t wanna incite the rage of the boss man. Need I remind you about that stunt you pulled last month?”

“You’re right,” Sean said sarcastically. “I apologize.”

“Uh-huh,” she mocked teasingly. “So what’re you working on here?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, but then quickly added, “It’s private. I’d rather not…share.”

But she had already pulled the sketchpad from his hands, despite his best efforts to lean away from her so she couldn’t reach it.

“You sure do draw a whole lotta Finn, don’t you?” she said, and Sean couldn’t tell if she was just pointing it out or if she was teasing him about it.

“Give it back, Cassidy, _please_.”

“So,” she said, regarding the drawing like an art critic evaluating work from the Louvre. “You like him?”

“I don’t know…”

“Bullshit,” she pushed him on his arm lightly, handing the sketchbook back over. “You fucking love him. You’d have like a million of his babies if you could-”

In front of them, they suddenly heard a loud splash in the water and looked up just in time to see Daniel excitedly celebrating something they hadn’t seen happen.

“Did you _see_ that!?” He ran up to them from the water, which splashed at his feet as he approached. Sean closed his sketchbook quickly to avoid Dan seeing it. “I lifted that boulder up from like, miles away!”

“Wow, Daniel,” Cassidy said, purposely sounding impressed to make the boy feel more confident, despite the fact that no, she hadn’t seen whatever he’d lifted. “You’re like a real-life Superman, aren’t you?”

“Did Finn see me?” he asked, peering past the two in front of him to get a look behind.

“Sure did, little man,” Finn said from where he sat a few feet away, still looking down at his book. “Fucking awesome, as usual,”

“What’re you reading?” Daniel asked, intrigued, and passed Cassidy and Sean where they sat to go over to where Finn was, leaning down to look. “Can I see?”

He plopped down next to Finn by the tree and leaned over his shoulder into the book, trying to read it.

“He is such a goober,” Cassidy said with a laugh, turning back to Sean and then out to the water. “But, that’s why we love him.”

Sean chuckled lightly, and said, “Yeah, he’s his own thing.”

“So anyway,” Cassidy said, leaning in to whisper to Sean. “I think we were interrupted in the middle of a very important conversation.”

“Ugh…Cassidy,” Sean said, though he couldn’t really be mad at her. She was just like a big sister to them, so of course she wanted to know everything.

“Alright,” she said, hands raised in surrender, “I know it’s not my place to know nothing ‘bout it, but I’m always here if you wanna talk. But don’t even pretend for one second that you’re not head over heels for that boy.”

They both turned to look at Finn as he quickly explained to Daniel an abridged version of the whole book, at Dan’s insistence, though Sean knew he’d have no clue what was going on in the plot.

“I see the way you look at him,” she said. “And I know for a fact he looks at you the exact same way.”

 

When he retired to bed that night, Sean had actually been the first to clock out, leaving Daniel in the hands of Finn and Cassidy to continue catching lightning bugs in jars. Work had been long, and Sean had wanted to get an early rest, since it was during the week.   

In his own tent, Sean was sitting up alone beneath the covers working on doodling the day out in his notebook. He was glad to be by himself for a brief moment, but it hadn’t lasted more than about twenty minutes when all of a sudden, the tent zipper flew open and in came Daniel looking like he’d just run from somewhere, or was perhaps very anxious about something on his mind.

Daniel, in all his Daniel ways, rezipped the tent again and then picked up the blanket that Sean had been laying under and crawled beneath it, pulling it over his head and hiding there.

“Is this some weird little brother thing I should know about?” Sean asked jokingly, poking Daniel through the covers. But his brother didn’t laugh, or even play along.

“Can I talk to you about something?” he asked, and Sean could hear that consistent levelness in Daniel’s tone that he only used when he really seriously meant what he was saying, so Sean put his pencil into his sketchbook, closed it, and placed it off to the side right away, turning his full attention to the goblin that’d taken harbor beneath his covers.

“Daniel,” Sean said, reaching up to pull the blanket away. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

The blanket slipped off of Daniel’s head as Sean pulled it away, mussing up his brother’s hair and leaving behind some static friction. He had his knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around them tightly, and once the cover of the blanket was gone, he pushed his face into his knees to hide.  

“Um. This morning, I tried to do what you said.”

“Huh?” Sean furrowed his brow, readjusting from where he’d been laying to seat himself crisscrossed. “And, what did I say to do?”

“Masturbate,” Daniel spoke embarrassedly into his knees. “But I didn’t like it.”

Sean facepalmed internally. He’d thought this was going to be something actually serious.

“Maybe you just did it wrong,” Sean suggested offhandedly, trying to let Daniel know this wasn’t a big deal, nor something to get all worked up about.

“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “But it felt weird.”

“Like, it hurt?”

“No.” He ducked his head more so that his eyes couldn’t be seen from behind his hair. “It felt good.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I felt guilty,” he said, muffled into his knee. “Like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Did you finish?” Sean asked awkwardly, and Daniel gave him a curious look.

“Finish?” he asked.

“Like…” Sean puffed out his cheeks and then released the trapped air, trying to think of a way to say this that wasn’t completely horrible. “Like,” he motioned in vague gestures that meant nothing in particular. “Like did you…” he made a sweeping motion away from his legs, trying to communicate what he wanted to say without actually having to say it.

Daniel shook his head and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Sean shook his head and almost wanted to chuckle at Daniel’s innocuous demeaner, but resigning to say instead that, “I think you’d know it if you did.”

“Oh, okay,” Daniel accepted with a slow nod, not entirely understanding the implication. “Then no, I guess I didn’t.”

Sean scooted closer to Daniel comfortingly, placing his hand on Daniel’s shoulder to get him to look up at him properly.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about,” he said. “It’s totally normal.”

“Am I broken?”

“You’re not broken, Daniel.” He sighed. “Or weird. Or anything. You’re just dealing with a hell of a lot of shit, way more so than anybody else. Don’t worry about this too and add to your list of problems.”

Daniel released his death grip on his knees and stretched his legs out across the tent, but his posture was still reserved, and he looked away from Sean again to his hands held in his lap.

“Can I ask you something else?” he said quietly.

“Of course.”

“I’m nervous to say it.”

“That’s okay, take your time.”

Sean gave him a few moments to come forward with whatever he had on his mind, waiting patiently for Dan to speak, which he did after what was probably a long internal monologue to himself.

“How do you know if you like boys or girls?” Daniel asked slowly, pulling the strings of his pants and tying them in tiny little braids.

“Um…I guess it’s just kind of, like, something you know.” Sean bobbed his head from side to side in consideration. “It’s hard to explain, but, I think once you know it, you’ll get it, y’know? Like breathing. Just something that happens and you don’t really think about it.”

“Who do… _you_ like?”

“Um…I like lots of people.”

“Do you like boys?”

“Um, some, um…some guys are nice.”

“Which ones?”

“I don’t know, Daniel,” Sean sighed, not wishing to be probed right now. He knew Daniel would hit the nail on the head eventually, especially since there were only three other guys at camp that Dan could guess Sean possibly liked. “When did this turn into an interrogation?”

“Sorry,” Daniel said, annoyed and picking at a hole in his jeans. “I was just asking a question. You don’t have to be mean.”

“I’m sorry,” Sean sighed, surrendering his defense that’d sprung up automatically. “I just…this isn’t about me.”

Daniel’s face had fallen significantly, and Sean regretted having snapped at him. He needed to work on that, being so defensive about things he didn’t want to talk about.

“Hey,” Sean said kindly, reaching out a hand to place comfortingly on the end of Daniel’s knee. “At your age, don’t worry about it. You’re only ten, you have a lot of time to figure that out about yourself. Okay?”

“But I wanna know now,” Daniel whined, and Sean laughed lightly.

“Why?” he asked. “What’s the rush?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said defensively. “I just wanna be grown up now. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“Trust me, you’ll get there before you know it. Just enjoy being young enough to not have to worry about stuff like that yet.”

“Do you like being grown up, Sean?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “And other times, it sucks.”

“What parts suck?” Daniel asked, taking a sideways look at his brother in curiosity.

“Well, you can’t get away with as many things anymore. Not like you.”

“I do not!”

“You get away with so much, dude,” he said, but when he saw the crestfallen look on Daniel’s face, added, “But it’s okay. You deserve to get away with stuff right now.”

Daniel thought about this quietly to himself, nodding at the information. Sean could practically hear the cogs turning in his head.

“If I did like a boy…” Daniel paused to gather his thoughts, seeming to think very hard about his question. “Would that be bad?”

“No,” Sean said seriously. “That would never, _ever_ be bad. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Any particular reason you ask?”

“No,” Daniel said, but Sean wondered if that were really true.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Hozier's song of the same name, _Like Real People Do_.


	8. Before I Close My Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially crossed the line from mature to explicit...you're welcome.

Humboldt County, located in picturesque Northern California and home to miles of beautiful Coastal Redwood forests along the Pacific Coast Highway 101, became the complete antithesis of itself when nighttime fell.

In the light of day, the trees of that wood beckoned tourists with the immediate affinities of romanticized travel and natural exploration. But as the midafternoon sun faded away and left room for the chilled presence of night to push its way in, the county’s urban legends of being a so-called “Murder Mountain” of the West Coast became ever more fearful.

Sean swore every time he left his tent to use the bathroom at night, or to go and visit Finn, he could feel the eyes of the wood watching his every move, and he always shuffled just a little bit faster on his way around the camp.

Being there with Finn during the night always made Sean feel so much safer. Even if his love wouldn’t be able to fend off potential murderers lurking in the woods – or just, like, _bears_ , for that matter – he still subconsciously convinced himself that when Finn was around, they’d be safe from any harm.

After laying Daniel down to sleep, Sean waited around for about an hour to make sure that his brother wouldn’t reawaken, and then carefully tiptoed his way out of their shared tent and joined Finn in his across the camp.

Outside, Cassidy was still awake and playing indie folk music on the community stereo as she chilled out with Penny and Hannah around the fire. Jacob rarely joined them, instead opting to keep to himself in his tent most of the time. And they all respected that, never pressuring him to do anything he didn't want to around them.

The volume of the music combined with the crackle of the fire meant that Finn and Sean couldn’t be heard inside his tent from their distance to the others. Though Sean was sure they all knew he was in there, since he wasn’t exactly the best at being discreet. Even though no one really ever said anything aside from a cheeky comment here and there, Sean knew that it was common knowledge at this point that there was something going on between them. 

The only person who didn't know was Daniel. But Sean still wasn't ready to open that bag just yet.

“I suck _actual_ ass, dude,” Finn said with a shake of his head, laughing as he held a piece of paper from Sean’s notebook up against his knee, using his reading book as a flat surface to draw against.

Finn had challenged Sean to an impromptu drawing battle to see who could better capture the other’s likeness. Sean figured it was just Finn’s excuse to be able to stare at him as much as he wanted, though if he were being really truthful, he was similarly glad to have the time to admire Finn’s face for as long as he wanted without judgement.

“Oh?” Sean quirked his brow but didn’t look up from his own drawing, which he was trying very hard on. “Actual ass? Actual _whole_ asses? Sounds rough.”

“Oh, shut up, bitch,” Finn said, and Sean stuck out his tongue.

“Just keep going,” he said. “It’s probably beautiful.”

“Oh, you best believe I’m gonna have, like, a stroke of Picasso genius up in this bitch. Don’t you worry.” Finn brushed some eraser fluffs off of his paper. “And besides, if it’s a picture of you, it’ll be perfect no matter what.”

They each continued to draw in silence for a little while, just listening to the sounds of Cassidy’s music and humming quietly to themselves, not feeling any need to rush this. Daniel was already asleep, so they weren’t on any time crunch here. It was one of those comfortable warm nights, so the chances of Dan waking up again were slim. Occasionally, the two of them would look up to take what could only be described as loving gazes at one another, and then quickly look back down at their portraits to add whatever it was they’d just observed in the other.

“I’m finished with mine,” Sean eventually said. “I think.”

Finn stopped his own work and waited patiently for Sean to show off his drawing, an excited look on his face as he held back a smile by lightly biting down on his lips.

“Okay, lemme see!”

Sean turned his drawing around to show what was basically a professional comic rendition of Finn with his eyes closed and a stylistic version of the sun behind his head like a halo.

“I put the sun in the picture because you…you’re like the summer, if the summer was a person,” Sean said sheepishly.

Finn just smiled and leaned over to kiss Sean lightly on his lips over the drawing, but took the time to kiss his forehead as well before settling back where he’d been sitting.

“Is it okay?” Sean asked.

 _"Okay?”_ Finn asked in disbelief. “It’s amazing. I don’t think I look that good in real life…but you…you make me feel like maybe I could.”

“Because you do. Even if you can’t see it. I can.”

“Is it okay, if I keep it?” Finn asked, and Sean nodded, glad that the other boy had liked it enough that he wanted to have it for himself.

He tore the paper out of his notebook and handed it over to Finn, to which the latter boy immediately pinned it into the tent wall right above the head of where he usually slept.

He settled back where he’d been sitting and then picked his own drawing back up from where he’d put it down.

“Ready with yours?” Sean asked, closing his sketchbook and setting it off to the side.

“Yeah, hold on,” Finn said, tongue between his lips and eyes squinted dramatically to flourish his work. “Finishing touches.”

It took a few more minutes, but when Finn finally turned it around, Sean had no idea what he was supposed to be expecting.

But it was so much better than he ever could’ve imagined.

“So here you are,” Finn said, running his hand along the picture as if to display it like one of those women who show off cars on TV game shows. “I’m pretty proud.”

His portrait of Sean was done as a stick figure with no pants or shoes wearing Sean’s wolf squad hoodie and having an extremely large head.

“This right here,” Finn said, pointing with his pencil to the space above Sean’s head. “See all these hearts? That’s your love for me, of course.”

Sean leaned in close to examine everything, a huge smile on his face.

“What’s all that rainbow-y explosion stuff around my head?” he asked, pointing to some colorful lines coming out of his face.

“Those are your big, gay feelings for me, dude,” he said, as if it was so obvious. “Just completely spilling out of your ears like fireworks.”

“Okay, classy.”

Finn brought his pencil down to point in the center of Sean’s drawn face.

“Then that’s your nose, there,” he said proudly, circling it with the eraser.

“That mushroom thing?”

“Totally,” he said, then putting his pencil off to the side. “I think it looks just like you.” He traced his fingers further up the face. “And then up here, we have your eyes.”

“Why do I have three of them?” Sean asked with a pleasantly curious grin.

“Because you’re like, the Mexican Shiva,” Finn said, and Sean gave him a questioning look.

“Shiva?” he asked, and Finn nodded.

“The three-eyed Hindu deity,” he said. “He was like, so fucking metal that he grew a third eye after he got blindfolded just so he could catch everybody on their bullshit.”

“And that’s me?”

“Hell yeah, dude. You’re metal as fuck.”

Sean took the photo into his own hands and Finn watched him patiently, waiting to hear what he thought of it.

“So?” Finn asked, lip bit in hope.

“It's perfect,” Sean said, and Finn seemed to take those words personally, as if the drawing was an extension of himself, translating that sentence metaphorically as approval of Finn as a person.

After drawing, they both got comfortable laying on their stomachs against pillows, heads near one another so they could see each other while they talked ambiantly.

They chatted sleepily for a long time, about anything and everything. Daniel’s power and where it might’ve come from, how Finn met Cassidy and the others, all the places across the U.S. that Finn had been to.

Everything felt as perfect and natural as if they’d been friends for a lifetime, if love could even be measured on a tangible scale. Sean decided that perhaps what he felt for Finn didn’t have a name. And he was okay with that, so long as he got to feel it.

“Have you ever heard the Russian phrase ‘Игра не стоит свеч’?” Finn asked, and Sean did a double-take.

“Have I ever heard _what_ now?” he asked with a humored scoff, and Finn chuckled lightly.

“It means, ‘It’s not worth it’, but literally translates to, ‘The game is not worth the candles’. It’s an idiom.”

“And how the hell did you remember that?”

“I read it in a book one time,” Finn said, “and it really stuck out to me.”

Sean shook his head in disbelief, a smile growing slowly up on his face. This self-proclaimed mangy fox had many secrets, it seemed.

“You could say the same thing in French, too,” Finn said. “Something like… ‘Le jeu n’en vaut pas la chandelle’.”

“Since when did you get so language-savvy, Mister ‘I can’t remember the difference between usted and tú’?”

“I’m not,” Finn laughed. “I just like learning idioms because they’re fun. I only know a couple of them. They were all written in this book I had for a long time growing up. It’s not like I could tell you what the individual words mean. I just remember the full sentences.”

“That’s still pretty fucking impressive, dude. Though it does totally make you sound like a ginormously pretentious douchebag.”

“Hey, I did say I was smart, didn’t I? I’m not all just good looks, babe. I’ve got some brains up there somewhere. And I’ll take that douchebag comment as a compliment. At least you said I was a ginormous one.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Good thing you’re bisexual then.”

Sean bit his bottom lip in thought. “I wish I knew another language,” he said.

“What?” Finn asked confusedly amused. “You’re like, totally bilingual. How is that not knowing another language?”

“That doesn’t really count,” Sean said, his voice quiet.

“Why not?” Finn asked, genuine confusion in his voice.

“My dad’s a first-generation immigrant, so it’s kind of a given. Nothing special,” Sean said, his voice a bit low with contempt for himself.

“Sounds pretty special,” Finn countered, speaking it like it were a fact, and suddenly, Sean wanted to believe it was true, too. Suddenly felt pleased to have the validation, the assurance that he was good as he was.

“Thanks,” he said lamely, still hiding his gaze partially in his pillow to shield himself from Finn’s. The vibe he gave off was too strong, and Sean’s was weak, so he felt like they were similarly charged magnets pushing against one another, Finn as the stronger one shoving Sean out of his orbit.

Sean paused as he listened to the music still outside, some soft guitar song playing.

“My dad loved classic rock,” Sean said dreamily, changing the subject somewhat after the mention of his dad. He nodded while he spoke, as if actually speaking to and for himself. He rarely spoke of his dad these days, even to Daniel. “He’d always…put it on when he was working in the garage. A lot of it was Spanish rock, from the eighties, like Santana or this other one called, uh, Héroes del Silencio. But he had some others in there that he always went back to, like, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd…y’know…”

“I obviously didn’t know him,” Finn said honestly, “but, he sounds like he was a pretty great guy.”

Sean smiled at the sentiment, and said, “He was.”

They stayed quiet for a little while, Sean leaning his cheek against his arms and listening to the sound of Cassidy’s music. He couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but the quiet chatter of their voices behind the backdrop of the fire made him feel so very at home in this strange land.

Finn pulled him out of his melancholic trance by reaching over to brush his hands against Sean’s face to get his attention. When Sean turned to him, Finn pulled himself forward a little closer to Sean to kiss him chastely on the forehead, then settled back down, hiding his mouth beneath his arms.

“No matter how many times I kiss you,” Finn said, “I just can’t get it right. And you know what I wanna do?”

“What?” Sean asked with a curious smile, biting his bottom lip as they all but lovingly stared each other down with sleepy eyes.

“Do it over and over again, for the rest of my life, until I can do it perfectly. You make me feel like I could live forever.”

No matter how many times Finn said such kind things, Sean could never process them. Finn’s praise was like all the money in the world, something that Sean knew existed but could barely imagine because of the sheer enormity of how great that number would be.

Finn’s love seemed infinite.

Sean hid a smile at his own thoughts in his arms, and Finn watched him do so, leading him to playfully ask, "What?" to Sean's antics.

“Can I…try something?” Sean asked shyly, still hiding his lower face behind a sweater paw of his hoodie.

“Something like…?” Finn asked, making a clockwise rotating motion with his hand to encourage more information.

“Do you think…you could show me…how to give a blowjob?”

“Sean Diaz!” Finn said dramatically, feigning offense. “Such dirty words, my goodness. Your foul mouth might fall on innocent ears. And we don’t talk like that in this fucking house.”

“Oh, shut up.” Sean giggled, which he’d never do if he wasn’t in the comfort of Finn. “Or I won’t do it.”

“Okay, okay. Do you…want one? Or, you want me to show you what to do to me?”

“I…um…what do you think is…is a better option?”

“Better option?” Finn laughed. “You’re talking about it like we’re going through a drive-up sex window.”

“Hey, you know I’m totally lost on this stuff.”

“Have you ever even watched gay porn?” Finn asked. “Not that porn is like, ‘real’, but y’know, you’ve seen stuff, right?”

Sean felt warmth flow to his face and he hid the color behind his arms so Finn couldn’t see, not that he had any reason to be embarrassed anyway because he knew Finn would never judge him.

“I mean…yeah,” he said shyly. “I’ve seen some. But…I don’t know…”

“Maybe a blowjob isn’t a good place to start then,” Finn suggested, “if you’re not confident about it. If you’re nervous, don’t feel like we have to do anything.”

“No,” Sean said, “I…I mean, of course I’m nervous. I don’t want to, like, be awful. But I do want this, with you. Really. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t.”

Finn pushed up from where he’d been laying on his stomach and sat on his knees, and Sean followed suit, looking to Finn to know what the next step was in this situation.

“You’re _sure_ you’re sure?” Finn asked carefully, and Sean nodded his head.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay,” Finn said with a smile he couldn’t contain, and reached both of his hands to Sean’s cheeks to embrace him in that way, closing the distance to place their lips together.

Finn let his hands fall from Sean's face to his hips, holding him into his own body so as to remove any possible space between them. Sean didn't know what to do with his own arms so he wrapped them around Finn's shoulders, which made the other boy take it as a chance to get at Sean's neck.

“What’re you doing?” he asked inbetween kisses when Finn pulled away just to push him back into the pillows.

“Well I was trying to turn you on,” Finn said, letting his head fall against Sean’s neck to kiss him in different places.

“Honestly, just you being this close to me is like, making me super hard already…”

“It’s ‘cause I’m so irresistible.”

“Psh, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Oh!” Finn sat up and put his hands out on Sean’s chest, straddling him. “So snippy with me! I think I’m rubbing off on you. In more ways than one.”

He trailed down to Sean’s legs where he situated himself immediately right to where he must’ve known to go from experience, and after they both readjusted some limbs, he’d gotten comfortable where he lay.

Once he was down there, he teasingly ran his hands along the edge of Sean’s pants, purposely doing so to get Sean worked up over this. Which really wasn’t that much of a task considering this was more than he’d ever done before.

He unzipped Sean’s pants and slid them down and off his legs, folding them halfway and then putting them off to the side. He braced his elbows on opposite sides of Sean’s hips and then reached up to slide Sean’s boxers down just enough to pull him out.

“You got hard so easily,” Finn snickered as he grabbed ahold of Sean’s shaft completely unabashed and not shy in any sense. Sean almost moaned out loud immediately just at the pure shock of being touched like that by another person.

He gave a few purposeful strokes to test how it felt with a new person’s equipment to work with, and then immediately went to town taking Sean in his mouth almost fully, all the while turning his gaze up half-lidded to gauge Sean’s reaction.

“Don’t look at me while you do it!” Sean said. “You’re giving me performance anxiety.”

“Performance anxiety?” Finn laughed with a raised brow. “You’re not even the one with a dick in his mouth. All you have to do is lay there.”

“Yeah, and laying here is nerve-wracking as hell, dude.”

“You’re so cute. As always, sweetheart.”

“Oh, don’t talk like that,” Sean whined and held his hand up to block Finn’s eyes from looking at him, to which Finn laughed again.

“What do want me to say?” Finn asked, pushing Sean’s hand away so he could see him. “‘Cause I can make it so much worse, babe. You know I’m all up in this bitch.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Sean stuck his tongue out and then laid his head back to look up at the top of the tent and just focus on the way he felt instead of talking.

“Oh,” Finn said, still running his hand skillfully up the length of Sean as he spoke, "and real people don’t moan like they’re dying when they have sex. That’d be pretty fucking disturbing if actual sex sounded anything like those tortured screaming moans girls yell out in porn.”

“What do you usually do during sex, then?” Sean asked, liking to hear Finn’s voice speaking anything, even during this. Or perhaps, especially during this. If there were silence here, right now, he might be afraid for the lack of intimacy.

“Real people just talk, laugh, whatever,” he said. “If you can’t joke about it, then what’s the point? And don’t swear every five seconds, either. So fucking corny.”

Finn smirked and cast his eyes up to Sean in jest as he traced his tongue teasingly up the underside of Sean’s shaft before wrapping his lips around the whole of it and sinking his mouth back down halfway and hollowing his cheeks. A wave of tingled pleasure ran over Sean’s lower half and up his tummy.

“Wait,” Sean said, settling into the new level of pleasure Finn had touched. “Do that again.”

“What?” Finn teased, repeating the increase of pressure he’d done when he made a soft sucking motion. “Like this?”

“Exactly…like that…” Sean covered his face with his hands as he blushed, not wanting Finn to see him react like that. It was still more intimate than he could handle, not out of embarrassment, but out of the intensity of doing something he never had before.

Now knowing what feeling Sean was the most into, Finn focused on repeating that specific motion over and over again mostly to tease the other boy, almost jokingly daring him to regret having mentioned it.

“I’m gonna come way too fast if you keep doing that,” Sean said breathlessly.

“Well I sure hope so. Y’know I can’t stay down here all night,” Finn said with a grin, still keeping one hand tightly gripped around Sean’s length while maintaining what might as well have been a perfectly normal conversation. He purposely circled his thumb across the top to tease Sean.

“All night…would be perfect,” Sean said, his words spaced while he could think of very little else than the feeling of Finn touching him.

Finn let out a dramatic fake yawn, using his free hand to pat his mouth. “I dunno, babe, I’m gettin’ pretty tired down here. Might just have to call it a loss.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sean said.

Finn rolled his eyes with a grin and changed the subject, saying, “Tell me when you’re gonna come, so I know.”

“Mhmm…okay.”

Whatever sinful god imbued Finn with the ability to make Sean feel better than he ever had on his own must’ve demanded his whole fucking soul for it, because Sean couldn’t think about anything else aside from the fact that even as inexperienced as he himself was, he knew perfectly well that Finn was way too good at this.

“Okay…” Sean said eventually with a sigh. “I’m gonna come.”

Finn didn’t respond and practically turned it up to an eleven using one of his hands to make up the difference where his mouth didn’t reach the base of Sean’s length. 

And when he finally did come, Sean just about died on the spot when Finn swallowed without a second thought, barely in belief that actual people really did that in real life.

Finn sat up on his knees from where he’d lain, wiping the corners of his mouth dramatically even if he hadn’t needed to just to tease Sean, who smiled widely and bumped Finn’s knee with the side of his thigh.

Finn laid himself back down next to Sean with a flop and stretched out to get comfortable, grabbing onto the zipper of the tent to play with it near his head.

“Fuck, Finn…” Sean said breathlessly, throwing his right arm over his forehead and laying back to sink into the descent from his erotic high. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Good?”

“I literally don’t know what to say.”

Finn turned onto his side, one hand propped under his head and watching Sean as he came back to reality. He traced lazy circles with his finger along the swirled designs of the blanket beside him. “Say I’m like, a sex god or something.”

Sean turned over onto his side too, to face Finn, and took a moment to appreciate that Finn had done that for him without expecting anything in return.

“Do you…want me to do you?” Sean asked shyly, his cheeks blushed with the pink memories of Finn’s mouth on him that he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about for a while now.

“I mean, only if you want to.” Finn shrugged earnestly. “I’m okay either way.”

“I want to,” Sean said, nodding his head to try and convey just how willing he really was. “Just…go easy on me.”

He sat up and scooted over to where Finn lay, positioning himself on his stomach inbetween the other boy’s legs after he'd turned over onto his back again.

Finn, watching him try to find the best way to do this, jokingly said, “Well hello there.”

“Don’t watch me,” Sean said with a laugh. “I’ll get too nervous if you’re looking at me.”

Sean stared Finn down jokingly until the other boy surrendered with a laugh and laid back so that he wasn’t looking at Sean.

Once he was sure Finn wasn’t watching, he ran his hands across the front of Finn’s jeans to feel a vague hardness beneath them. And all at once, it became immediately more real than anything they’d done so far.

“There’s really a penis in there…” Sean said absentmindedly, and Finn burst out laughing, his hands on his chest and almost rolling over onto his side.

“I fucking hate you, Sean. I’m gonna lose my boner.”

“Stop laughing!” Sean said with a huge smile he couldn’t hide. “I can’t do it if you don’t help me.”

Finn settled back down on his back and willed himself to be quiet, sealing his lips but still smiling through them as if that laughter was trapped behind them. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be good. Promise.”

Sean grabbed the zipper of Finn’s jeans between his fingers and pulled it down, going slowly just for his own benefit in taking things at his own pace. He slipped the tops of his fingers into the top of Finn’s boxers and ran his hand along them, testing out the feel of doing this, then pulling them down to reveal that yes, there really was a penis in there.

He ran his fingertips along the side of it to see what it felt like, then reached in fully to pull it out, where it relaxed against Finn’s stomach when he released it.

To test, he grabbed it loosely into his hand and then tentatively placed his tongue on the side of Finn’s tip just to see, like he was testing how cold a popsicle was.

"Hm,” he said, closing his mouth again and moving Finn’s penis around in his hand like he was examining it closely.

“Hm, what?” Finn asked in amusement, not watching Sean and just staring sleepily up at the roof of the tent.

“It’s like…both exactly and nothing like what I thought it would taste like.”

“Oh?” Finn said in a quirked tone, leaning up then to see what Sean was so fascinated with. “Thought about sucking lots of dicks, have you?”

Sean reached his hand up to push back on Finn’s chest to make him lay down again, and with a teased smile, said, “Oh, shut up.”

He opened his lips around just the tip and sucked lightly on it, not really knowing what exactly the formula was here but trying to kind of mimic what Finn had done to him.

He felt too shy to just go to town on Finn and take him completely into his mouth, so he kind of teetered between very timidly running his tongue along it and just suckling on the tip.

He pulled away and lightly jerked Finn off with his hand, saying, “If me seven months ago saw me now, he’d probably shit his pants.”

Finn laughed, and said, “I’m sure you from seven months ago would be hella jealous of all your slutty ventures.”

Sean’s cheeks turned pinker at Finn’s words, and he averted his eyes from his lover to focus back on what he was doing.

“You’re so cute,” Finn said, and Sean faked a pout.

“Cute’s not really what a guy wants to hear in this situation…” Sean said, but Finn shook his head.

“Your cuteness is what makes you sexy, Sean,” he said. “You down there acting like you’re just licking a popsicle and not trying to suck the soul outta me is really turning me on.”

“Well, sorry I suck.”

“No, you _don’t_ suck. That’s the point.”

Sean laughed lightly and then slipped his lips back around Finn, slowly sliding farther down, though still not going in completely for fear of not doing it correctly and seeming silly.

“This is a lot of work,” Sean said with a huff of laughter when he pulled off again, still working Finn with his hands while he let his reddened lips have a break.

“It’s just because you’ve never done it before. You’ll get better.”

“Oh?” Sean quirked an eyebrow at Finn. “Do I hear that you’re expecting me to do this again?”

“I mean…” Finn trailed off, just shrugging his shoulders slyly and then letting out a warm laugh when Sean reached up to gently push Finn’s gaze away from him again. “Alright, alright…I’ll let the master work in peace.”

Unintentionally, Sean looked up to make eye-contact with Finn while he came back up from being a little more than halfway down his shaft, his eyes opening from being slightly closed.

“Fuck, Sean, don’t look at me like that,” Finn said, tilting his head back into his pillow and closing his eyes.

Sean took his mouth away and kept stroking Finn lazily with his hand.

“Like what?” he asked, and Finn let out a small moan of a sigh.

“The fact that you don’t even know the effect you have on me is insane.”

Sean grinned at what he assumed was a compliment, feeling a little more confident from the praise and taking Finn back in his mouth, now surer of what he could handle. It wasn’t the size that was intimidating, but the prospect of this foreign thing being inside his mouth where foreign things weren’t supposed to be.

“Am I supposed to swallow?” he asked near worriedly when he pulled away again suddenly at the thought of what he was actually supposed to do when it came to that moment, but Finn shook his head.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Porn makes it seem like some unspoken law that you gotta swallow to like, show your undying ride-or-die-ness or whatever, but you don’t have to. It’s not that great.”

“You did it, though.”

“Okay,” Finn said with a short laugh, “but I also ate those M&Ms I dropped on the ground yesterday.”

“Point taken.” Sean smiled, and set back to work. He was happy to do it, but damn if it wasn’t tiring actually doing the serious blowjob stuff. If he could just lazily jerk Finn off for a while, he’d be good with that. But this was like a little performance and he didn’t want to be too terrible at it.

It took a little while for Sean to get into some kind of rhythm where it actually became more like a real blowjob and less like Sean stopping every five seconds to make a comment. He slipped more into the role of using his mouth and hands at the same time and thought of less things to say, growing sleepy and just focusing in on making Finn feel good instead of distracting them both with another question yet again.

“You're doing really good. I’m almost there,” Finn said, and Sean nodded. Those words made him feel shyly proud in a way; that he’d done that. That he’d had that effect on Finn.

When he did finally come, Sean had removed his mouth at Finn’s suggestion that he do so, and finished him with his hand. Even though he had known what was coming (literally), he still watched with wide eyes when Finn came onto his stomach and over Sean’s hand.

Sean let go of his hold on Finn and then just kind of sat there for a minute in the moment of what had just happened. He wiped his hand off on Finn’s lower stomach and then he let out a short laugh like a scoff.

“What?” Finn asked, leaning up on his elbows to see what was so funny.

“Sorry,” Sean said, laying his forehead against Finn’s thigh to hide his smile. “I just don’t know what I expected. I’ve jerked off like a million times and that still surprised me.”

“It’s different when it’s somebody else. Hand me my towel from over there.”

Sean turned around the see Finn’s shower towel folded up near the other end of the tent, then reaching to grab it and hand it over to Finn after he’d wiped off his own hand.

Finn cleaned himself off as much as he could and then put himself back in his boxers but moved to take his pants off to be more comfortable. He put the towel near the tent opening to make sure he remembered to take care of it in the morning.

Sean settled down next to Finn on his stomach and laid his arms and head on Finn’s chest, one of his legs thrown loosely overtop Finn’s.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Sean had calmed down and suddenly become aware of how just how sleepy he was getting. He wore a soft smile on his face, and said, “I’m glad that…that my ‘somebody else', was you.”

Finn seemed taken aback for a moment in hearing that come from Sean, since the latter boy was almost never as candid as Finn was. They shared a brief moment of absolute sincerity there, just taking in the fact that this experience they’d just shared was very much real.

“I feel sticky,” Sean said, and Finn laughed, running his palm lightly overtop Sean’s head and playing with his hair absentmindedly.

“That’ll happen,” he said.

“And I’m really tired.”

“That’ll also happen. And we should definitely both go to the bathroom soon. Always pee after you have sex. UTIs are a fucking bitch.”

“Mm…I think I might die if I have to take the walk of shame past the others,” Sean said, hiding his face in Finn’s chest.

Sean laughed again, as he so easily did when he was with Finn, the boy just inciting so much joy in him. He kept his cheek pressed into Finn’s chest and he reached up to run his index finger down the center of his lover’s face, from the middle of his forehead, over his nose, and down to the end of his chin.

“What?” Finn asked, smiling just at the sight of Sean’s own smile, as if he didn’t even need to be in on the secret musings of his lover’s mind to feel that joy. He held Sean’s head up with his fingers gently beneath his chin.

“I’m just happy,” Sean said honestly. “That’s all.”

For a little while, they stayed there in the quietness of the night. Outside, Cassidy’s music still played into the air and the others laughed and chattered quietly to one another, blissfully ignorant to what had just gone down feet away from them.

“You know that one prayer?” Finn asked, and Sean reopened his eyes where they’d accidentally fallen shut. “The one about laying down to sleep.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sean said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “I know which one you mean. My dad…he…he used to say it with us before bed, sometimes. Do you…want me to say it?”

“Could you? Before I close my eyes.”

“Okay.”

Sean leaned his chin on his crossed arms atop Finn’s chest, being cradled by the warmth and safety of perhaps the one person in the world he may place his trust in. Sean ran his hands through Finn’s hair, comfortingly pulling his fingers along the latter boy’s dreads with their colored beads and clasps. And he spoke those chosen words into the candlelight of the tent, those chosen words that perhaps were made for just the two of them.

 _Now as I lay me down to sleep,_  
_I pray the Lord my soul to keep._  
_And if I should die before I wake,_  
_I pray to God my soul to take._

The early morning sky drew back on clouded curtains to an expanse of blue, like the sea, bringing with it the all-seeing eye of the sun. 

When Sean awoke, he opened his eyes to see Finn already sitting up nearby, holding a small picture in his hands which he regarded with curiosity, innocently unaware of what it really was.

A picture that Sean recognized immediately.

“Who’s this?” Finn asked innocently when he saw Sean looking at him, but Sean didn’t care, snatching the photo back from him in an instant and then sitting away from Finn.

“Sorry, I…I didn’t mean to pry,” Finn said quietly, but Sean didn’t reply.

Sean clutched his mother’s photograph before him, thumbing lightly over the captured replication of her image as if it were imbued with voodoo and thus connected to the real thing. 

It was the photo of her when she was younger that his grandfather had in his office back in their house in Beaver Creek. Before they’d left in December, Sean had taken it.

Though he wouldn’t admit it, his reaction had been born of jealousy.

As if someone else touching the picture would ruin some kind of secret magic it held. And it would no longer be a secret connection of his to her anymore.

He’d been carrying the photo around in his back pocket for a while now, so he guessed it must’ve fallen out at some point last night while they were moving around a lot. And Finn found it.

“That your mom?” Finn asked quietly, still looking away.

“Yeah.”

Finn nodded, then scooted a bit closer to Sean, settling into his side.

“You have her jawline…” he said, “and cheekbones.”

Sean looked at him briefly, and asked, “...You think?”

“Yeah, see here?” Finn ran his fingertips along the side of her face in the picture and up the curve of her jaw. “Around like this, and then, up like that. I can see it. I mean, you’re no white lady…but she’s in you somewhere.” 

Sean traced the places that Finn had drawn for him, wondering if it were really true. And if it was, he didn’t know whether or not that made him happy or sad. He simultaneously wanted to be connected to this woman and yet have absolutely nothing to do with her.

He could travel the whole world and never be far enough from her.

“So, what’s the story?” Finn asked. “You’ve never really…mentioned her.”

“She left when I was eight,” Sean said dryly, trying to remove all emotion from his voice so that he didn’t get upset. “I don’t know how you could do that to your family, to your kids. Daniel was only one when she left. Fucking heartless.”

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Finn suggested kindly, regarding the photo of her from an obviously distanced perspective on the situation. Sean couldn’t help but feel offended.

“Yeah.” Sean pursed his lips bitterly. “Just that she hated all of us.”

“Sean, I’m sure that’s not true.”

“And why not?” he nearly snapped. “She would’ve stayed if she hadn't.”

“Have you never tried seein’ things from her perspective?”

Sean lowered her picture to his lap and released it, bringing his hands up to his face to rub the sleep and the memory of this woman from his eyes, then leaning his chin on his hands and trying to compose himself. He didn’t want to be upset about this. Didn’t want to allow this to creep back inside of him the same way that it had so many times before.

Taking that photo of her from Stephen and Claire’s house probably wasn’t the best choice for his mental health, but he couldn’t help it. Like when you lose a friend but can’t seem to stop periodically checking up on them on social media, despite knowing that every time you do, you’ll lose all the progress you’d made in letting them go. He craved to know but couldn’t live with what he learned.

Finn placed his hand comfortingly onto Sean’s back, rubbing slow and careful circles into his skin through his shirt to calm him down. The intimate touch of his lover on him made Sean's tears threaten to fall immediately, and he swallowed harshly to fend them off.

“Think about...think about all the amazing things in your life,” Finn said in a soft voice. “There’s a whole heck of a lotta shit to get through, but in the middle, in the core...there’s you. And you,” he said, pointing into Sean’s back lightly for a second, “are pretty fucking amazing.”

Sean choked out a sob that he couldn’t stop from slipping out, and put his hand over his mouth to stop the tortured sounds coming from his throat.

“You wouldn’t be you if she hadn’t done what she’d done,” Finn said.

But that was too far. That, Sean didn’t want to hear. Not because it was untrue, but because it so very much _was_ true. Painfully so. Which made it all the harder when it fell on Sean’s willfully deaf ears to the sentiment.

“Sometimes…” Sean struggled out, clenching his hands to feel the pressing of his nails into his palms. “Sometimes I think she left…because of Daniel. And I don’t want it to, but it makes me...it makes me angry. Things were fine until he showed up.”

“Were things really fine?” Finn asked, drawing small shapes into Sean’s back. “Or were you just too young to see everything that was wrong?”

Sean lifted his face from his hands, almost offended at the prospect of what Finn had just suggested. He didn’t like the way his chest clenched at those words, and he definitely didn’t like that that anger brewing inside him was directed at Finn.

“If you could…” Finn asked, “would you give all this up if it meant that your mom would’ve never left?”

“Without a doubt,” Sean said, and he couldn’t believe he had, as if those words had a mind of their own. As if a ghost had possessed his lips and spoken them before he knew he could make those sounds.

“So, you would…you…hm…never mind.”

“What?” Sean asked, but Finn just shook his head woefully.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just…forget about it. But, um, I’ve just gotta say that, y’know, you’re pretty lucky you know who your mom is, and, that you have this nice picture to remember her by. Even if you’re mad at her now, what’s the point of holdin’ on to all of that?”

Sean shook his head sadly. “I’d do anything just to…to go back and make her stay. I always wonder if…if maybe there was something _I_ could’ve done that would've stopped her from leaving. If I’d just thought of the right words, things could’ve been so different.”

“Hmph. Funny,” Finn said with a solemnly humored shake of his head, letting his hand slip away from Sean’s back, and Sean gave him a look.

“What’s funny?” he asked, not understanding Finn’s point.

“You,” he said. “Thinking that if you could go back and fix all that...that we’d still meet. Just because you could have another life, doesn’t mean I would. You woulda been out there, mom and dad, little brother – the perfect nuclear family. But I still woulda been just me. Just Finn. And y’all never woulda ended up here...with us.” 

“Oh…I’m so sorry,” Sean said with a quick shake of his head. “I-I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Nah, it’s cool.” Finn shrugged and let out a sigh, letting the conversation roll off his back. “I mean, most things are better than this, right? Pretty shitty, livin’ out here. Not ideal, I get that. I respect that.”

“Finn.” Sean reached out to him automatically. “I didn’t mean-”

“Hey, Sean,” Finn said, and Sean felt very much like he didn’t wish to be named Sean at that moment, from the way his name fell from his partner’s lips like a formal addressal, and not the romantic claim he so loved. “Don’t worry about it. Ain’t no thing, right, sweetheart? Ain’t no thing.”

“Maybe not having a mom at all is better,” Sean said before he'd really thought through the hurtful words in his head. They spilled from his open mouth like a flood, and he couldn’t take them back once they’d been spoken. “That way she can’t hurt you.”

 _“You think my mom didn’t hurt me?”_ Finn snapped unprompted, and Sean flinched, completely taken aback at the sudden tone in Finn’s voice. He’d never heard Finn sound like that before, and the other boy instantly sunk into himself like a snapped rubber-band at his own realization that he’d gotten upset like that without meaning to.

Sean didn’t respond anymore, suddenly feeling the closest he’d ever come to the parts of Finn he didn’t know. And he felt like a stranger there. Even inside his own body. He felt so distant from himself, from Finn…and so very much like he’d forgotten who he was after getting lost in his lover.

“I need to go check on Daniel,” Sean said, shaking his head to will away the sadness that was creeping up on him. “Before he wakes up. He’s gonna be pissed if he realizes I’m not there again.”

Sean slipped his pants on in silence, somehow tasting bittersweet at the memory of them having kind of slept together. He didn’t regret it. Not in a million years. But he wanted to cry, all the same. And he didn’t want Finn to see.

“I’ll see you later, Finn.”

“Yeah,” Finn said distantly, not watching as his lover left. “See you.”

 

Have you ever seen sunlight so beautiful it could make you cry? Not at its brilliance, but at its inevitability to fade away. Knowing in your soul that you would only be able to live in that exact kind of sunlight for a few moments, where then it would end, and never return again in the same way as you remembered it.

There was once that Sean walked along a beach, as a child, and the oil rigs in the ocean were bright along the horizon like a dozen fairy lights. And two cranes made their way slowly down the sand near the water, the sky above them an eternal lilac. And he knew that he had never seen a more perfectly beautiful thing in his entire life. But he had no camera with him. None but his memory. And he swore to himself that if he should ever feel lonely again at the thought of mortality, he would remember those beautiful cranes and that lightened horizon, and he would accept that nothing lasts forever. 

He wished to cry at the thought. But he couldn’t decide who those tears were for. 

So he shed none.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from XXXTentacion's song of the same name, _Before I Close My Eyes._


	9. Leave Tonight Or Live And Die This Way

_Fading what I feel._

_Give me something real._

_Promise it will stay._

_Please don’t take my heart away._

The difference between your relationships with your friends versus your relationships with your family is the blurry dissonance between choice and responsibility.

Between I _want_ to.

And I _have_ to.

Sometimes, Sean wondered what the point of anything was anymore. He barely knew where they were going, let alone why, or how they were supposed to get there in the first place. Every day was a struggle just to keep finding something to fight for.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t actually know if that “something” to fight for was even Daniel…not really. He thought a lot about what his brother meant to him, but he always came up short. Not in love, because _of course_ he loved Daniel, but in his understanding about the circumstances of their situation, and how the two of them fit into those specific roles.

For months now, they’d been wandering aimlessly with the vaguest sense of direction, and though he wouldn’t want to admit it to Daniel, Sean doesn’t actually know if they have a goal. Puerto Lobos might as well be _Narnia_ , because he was about as sure of the existence of one as he was of the other. If they could magically appear at their destination by walking through the back of a wardrobe or speeding through a hidden platform at a train station, he’d give anything.

But they can’t do that. And Puerto Lobos meant about as much to him as the moon. Close enough to see that it is real, but too far away to prove it. A distant reminder that life exists and moves on without you, in countries you've never been, with people you’ve never met, on planets you can’t even imagine exist.

He wonders what the kids at school must think of him now. He was never popular, but he wasn’t disliked, either. Somewhere in the middle of the social scale of obscurity was where he floated most of the time, and generally, that was how he preferred it. He was never one for the spotlight, which is ironic, given the fact that his face is probably one of the most well-known across the country now, plastered on every newspaper, magazine, television screen. He was sick of seeing his own face on everything, and after so many months, it didn't even feel like himself anymore. He was amazed how quickly this had made him grow tired of his own self.

Something Sean had learned in his time on the road was just how fast time really passed, and he wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing. None of the days they lived through ever felt like they really mattered, with all of them sort of blending nonsensically into one, single, _very long day._ So if he went a little while without speaking to someone, it never really felt much like it, because the close proximity he shared to them all made it seem like each of them was a part of a never-ending conversation. There was this constant feeling, quite literally, that the party never stopped, like an eternal sleepover with friends.

And with how close they all were to one another all the time, it was considered common courtesy to give each other space whenever it was needed, because they all understood how important it was to have time to themselves in order to recharge and unwind away from the others. 

There’s that saying that goes something like, “Never go to bed angry," but Sean doesn’t think he agrees with that. The implication is supposed to be that you should sort through your problems with whomever you have them with before you go to bed, so you can rest easy knowing that it’s solved. But what Sean had come to appreciate out here was the ability of a new day to reset what had been done in the past. He couldn’t afford to hold grudges about minor squabbles, petty infighting, little disagreements. In the world of illegality in which he lived, he knew that it was eat or be eaten. If he allowed his emotions to get the better of him and ruin the fragile relationships he’d made with the people out here, then he’d be left all alone. And he doesn’t know if he can go through that again.

So, instead of solving his problems before bed, he instead preferred to take a breather away from the issue, get a good night’s sleep, and then readdress it in the morning, or perhaps a few days later, when he felt more appropriately ready to take it on. The endless days of time that living here afforded him had inadvertently given him a strange sense of patience, and for that, at the very least, he was grateful.

He hadn't felt much like talking to Finn lately. But at the same time, he did, because the only person who would really understand why he was feeling so distant was the same person he was feeling so distant from.

He didn’t mean to be so dramatic about his life, or his secrets, but this has all been so much to take on at such a young age that he can't help but overreact sometimes. It's only natural, being the teenager he is.

Every time the subject of his mom came up, he just shut down.

It’s difficult to describe the instant guttural pain of a single person. If you’ve never had someone for whom you saw as a living grave, then you do not know what it is like to hold one person in your mind as if you might die just at the sheer mention of them.

Karen was like this brand that Sean bore to the world, that burned with hateful rage every time her name was mentioned, every time it was spoken. As if, somehow, she held that power over him, even after all these years. He could never take it off, or walk away from it, or wash it away. It was a permanent mark on the skin of his life, and it always would be. 

Finn was out by the lake that morning, with Sean having seen him head over there by himself after breakfast. Sean wondered if he shouldn't just join him out there at the water, but he didn't know if he'd be imposing. The two of them had always been good at giving the other space when it was needed, and he was glad that they were mutually respectful about that. If there was one thing Sean wished for these days, it was more time to himself. 

It was an almost rainy Saturday, that day, with a vibe of sleepy awakeness in the air, which contradicts itself on purpose. You feel tired, but not physically, just washed in this sense of inner relaxation that you can't quite explain. You want to sit and take the smell of the watered trees in, wishing you could just pull that scent into you as deeply as possible.

Sean stayed near the fire in the center of camp as the others went about their daily business, Hannah sitting in her tent working on sewing up a hole in her jeans, Cassidy nearby making coffee, Jacob playing cards with Penny at the kitchen table. It was a day that was passing the same as so many others before it. 

“Mornin’ there, lobito,” Cassidy said kindly, giving a small wave as she walked over from the kitchen to join Sean on the wooden bench he sat on beside the fire. “Mind if I join?”

A few weeks prior, Cassidy had specifically asked Sean what the term was for “little wolf”, and now used it every chance she got. She’d taken to calling Daniel “mi frijolito", her little bean. She was like a big sister to the both of them, so they’d taken warmly to the terms of endearment. 

“Hey, Cassidy," he said. "No, I don’t mind. Come on over.” He scooted over to give her some room to sit down to his left. The flames of the fire flickered slightly in the breeze she brought with her movements.

“So,” she said, taking a seat and holding a mug of coffee in her hands, “What’s Sean up to today?”

“Just thinking too much,” he said, drawing loops and swirls into the dirt beneath their feet with a long stick he'd picked off the ground.

“Mm,” she nodded, taking a sip of her drink, “Well, don’t think _too_ hard. Don’t want you to pop a blood vessel or nothin’.”

Sean gave a shortly humored scoff in acknowledgement of what she'd said. “I’ll try not to.”

She looked across from them at Daniel, who was over by the kitchen playing fetch with their dog. He’d gotten up pretty early that day, just after sunrise, so Sean was a little extra tired from having had to get up with him before he was finished sleeping.

"Daniel sure is bright and peppy this mornin’,” Cassidy said, and Sean nodded, but didn’t respond with any words.

Noticing his distance, she leaned her shoulder into him softly to get his attention back, saying, “So, how are you? You doin’ okay?”

He shrugged, not facing her. “Been better…I guess," he said honestly.

“I hear that.” She took a breath in through her nose and released it. “I know it’s tough. But’cha just gotta keep…keepin’ on.”

“I know…" he said. "it just gets to be...a lot.”

She nodded and said, "It does. But, we're all here for you, Sean. So...don't ever hesitate to ask for help, if you need it. Okay?"

"Okay," he said.

They both watched Daniel run about the camp for a little while, Cassidy not pushing Sean for anything else as he didn't seem in the mood to talk much and she understood that.

“D’you like bein’ you, Sean?” she asked after a bit of time had passed. He was surprised by the question, but not put-off. It was a good one to consider, he supposed.

“Maybe not…these days,” he admitted, and she nodded. He wondered what it really was she was fishing for, and he got his answer immediately, when she posed her next statement.

“You know...Finn’s had a terrible life," she said, purposely edging onto a different topic. 

 _Ah_ , he thought. This was about Finn.

“Yeah," he said quietly, looking down at the dirt below still. 

“I don’t think you’ll hurt him," she said. "If anything, he’ll hurt you by gettin’ too attached and then bailing. He can be like that. Gets too close, then lets go before the other person can choose to stay. He can be a drama queen, sure. But he means well. Or, as well as he _can_ mean.”

She carefully put her hand out and placed it onto his shoulder, not being too physically forward so as to not scare him away from the conversation.

“It’s silly,” she said, “but…y’know how on airplanes, they always say to put on your own oxygen mask before helpin’ anybody else out with their’s? That’s what you need to do, Sean Diaz.”

“But I don’t think I _can_ do that,” he said. “It’s my job to take care of Daniel.”

“Is it?” she asked. “Or do you just think it is?”

“How can it not be?” He turned to her.

“You don’t owe anybody anything, Sean. And it’s okay to be selfish, sometimes. Even if you think you’re making a mistake. There aren’t mistakes in times like these, just…choices.”

He looked up and around the camp, giving a small kind of light-humored scoff. “Why’re you all so wise and mighty out here?” he asked.

“Probably all the drugs,” she said, but then quickly added, “Just kidding. I’m just tryna be helpful. Is it working?"

"A little."

"Just a little?"

"Okay," he said. "Maybe a lot. _Maybe_."

 

Down by the lake, Finn was laying down on one of their communal couches and having a smoke, not doing much but watching the clouds and taking some time to himself out there. The air was quite still around them, with very little in the way of breeze. Time felt that it had stood still. And perhaps it had. 

Sean approached him by way of the camp trail, walking slowly so as to not disturb whatever careful peace Finn may have found out here.

“Hey, man…” Sean said awkwardly as he approached, throwing up a weak wave even though Finn probably couldn't see him from where he lay.

“‘Hey, man’?” Finn repeated with his brow raised, pulling a joint from his lips and holding that arm loosely over the back of the couch. “That’s all I get?”

Somewhere inside, Sean felt his heart flutter to know that Finn had recognized him by only his voice.

Sean shrugged sheepishly, hands in his pockets, and said, “Sorry…” as he rounded the couch to see the other boy properly.

Finn took another hit and pushed the dreads from his face that’d fallen in front of his eyes. “It’s okay,” he said, bending his legs up from where they’d been spread across the whole couch so that Sean would have room. “Wanna sit down?”

“Yeah,” Sean said, coming closer and taking a careful seat on the edge, sitting up quite straightly. “Thanks.”

“So, how’s Daniel?” Finn asked.

“He’s okay.”

“And, how are you?”

“I’m…also okay.”

“Good,” Finn said, looking up to the sky. “That’s good to hear.”

The smell of cannabis filled the air around them as it usually did, like the memory of a campfire, some vague semblance of both the here and now, and of everything left behind. They sat in silence for what felt like forever, and might as well have been, because Sean wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he hoped to happen here, what it was that he hoped to find closure on. All the cards were in his deck, and now it was up to him to play them correctly.

“Here,” he said, after a while, pulling something from his pocket and holding his hand up to give it to Finn.

“What?” the other boy asked, having been pulled from his daydreamed thoughts and back to reality by a photograph being pushed in his direction.

“You wanted to look at her,” Sean said. “So. There she is.”

Finn accepted the picture from Sean into his own hands cautiously, as if being too rough would somehow damage the fragile trust between them that it took for Sean to feel comfortable bringing this topic back up again. He put out his joint in a dish nearby. 

“What’s her name?” he asked.

“Karen.”

“Mm.”

Within this photo, there was something exceptionally average about her. White, blonde, blue eyes…beautiful.

 _Boring_.

A picture-perfect memory of this woman, so young…and pretty forever. A candle that will never melt away. And in that uncanny level of perceived normality, Sean wondered how he and Daniel had come to exist. Karen carried none of the intrigue of a woman to whom two mixed children were born. And he couldn’t understand how she had come to marry their father, given the conservative, religious family she’d been born to. He sometimes wondered if Karen had only married Esteban to piss off her parents, since in their eyes, he must've been quite a downgrade from the upper-class white man that her parents had probably always hoped she'd marry. Some lawyer, teacher, doctor...whatever. Anything that wasn't Esteban...that's what Karen was. And Sean didn't understand. 

“What was your mom’s name?” Sean asked, hoping that by showing Finn this photo, it would open a bridge of dialogue between them on this subject.

Finn remained quiet for some time, and Sean wondered if perhaps this wasn't the right thing to have asked. Maybe this was an even more sensitive subject for Finn than it was for even himself. He hoped that the two of them could bond over this, maybe, so he gave his friend enough time to consider his response with as much care as needed.

“It was…Wendy,” Finn said, almost struggling to speak it, as if he’d considered coming up with an alias on the spot. “My dad, he used to call her his ‘Wendy Darling’, like, from _Peter Pan_. Y’know?”

Sean nodded, saying, "Yeah, yeah...so...I know you were the youngest. What was that like?"

“My mom had my oldest brother when she was really young," Finn said. "And my dad was older, so…you get the idea. Four boys probably wasn’t her idea of a perfect family. I remember seein’ pictures of her when she was younger, but I just couldn’t ever find the woman I knew in the faces of those photographs. By the time I was born, she was already so fucking destroyed that I only got like, one-twentieth of the woman she used to be.”

"Was something wrong with her?" Sean asked, and he immediately regretted his word choice, though Finn hadn't seemed to notice.

“Yeah, she was a…a drug addict. So.” Finn nodded to himself in urge to his own continuing of the story. “And she…she used to come home totally plastered all the time. But I was young…didn’t know what an addict looked like…so I always thought, hey, that’s just mom.”

Sean listened carefully, but offered no more words. He knew that Finn wasn’t one for a back-and-forth in times like these. What the other truly needed was to speak and feel heard, as if to have a captive audience to project his emotions onto. And Sean was a good listener, he'd come to realize. He pulled his left leg up onto the couch and turned more towards Finn to engage him.

“I remember finding out one time in elementary school that my teacher knew when my mom was using again because my grades would slip and I’d start acting out more. It was a whole big thing, with counselors and shit. But they didn’t do a single goddamn thing for me. Ended up dropping out at fourteen anyway. Just stopped fucking going. They didn’t care. I was just one of _those_ kids.”

Finn sat up from where he lay finally, pulling both his legs up onto the couch and into a crisscrossed position. He looked down at the photo of Karen still in his hands as if searching for the memory of his own mother within it.

“She used to take me with her when she went to go buy drugs, get high," he said. "We’d…drive to this one really shitty apartment all the time, a town away; place was always cycling through tenants. She told me her ‘friend’ lived there, so we’d go, and she’d bring me inside and let me sit and watch TV in the living room, while she went off and ‘caught up with her friend’. I didn’t know she was just gettin’ high. They had all sorts a’ games there, fuckin’, PS2, GameCube, Xbox. And I’d just sit there, for hours, and when she was done, we’d go home. Never had a single fucking clue she was driving high that whole time. And the worst part? I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world just because she let me ride in the front seat with her.”

He handed the picture back to Sean and sighed slowly, like to wash away the speaking of these feelings which had come back up after what had probably been quite a long time of repressing them.

“But even through all of that,” he sighed, “she was still my mom. And I guess, the most I can say about her…is that I’m sorry that her life was terrible. She wasn’t a good woman. But I don’t blame her. I don’t know why I don’t, but I don’t. I guess it’s just because it doesn’t matter now. What happened, happened. And now she’s outta my life for good. But I still have those moments where I’m hit with that sudden feeling, like, I just wish I could drive with her somewhere, one more time.”

"Did you have any other family?" Sean asked, and Finn gave a half shrug, half nod.

“I had an uncle," he said, "My mom’s brother. And he had a good life, good family. Never really came ‘round since he’d pulled himself outta the shit he grew up in. Not like my mom. But, one night, my mom was talkin’ to him on the phone…” He sighed. “And I came out from my room because I heard her, and she was cryin’ really loud. She was tryin’ to get him to take us. Said she couldn’t do it anymore. I think…I think she mighta been high, or drunk, I don’t really know. But I’ll never forget that. He already had two kids of his own, but, fuck, I just can’t believe she’d…”

He stopped for a moment and stared straight ahead to the water, no longer even breathing, instead holding it all in like he’d lose himself should he let slip even a single breath of air. He swallowed harshly and turned his gaze to the sky, not looking at anything in particular, just trying instead to hold it together by tilting his head back.

“We all knew there was something wrong with her,” he said. “Had the cops called on us quite a few times for domestic disturbances. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand what was ever really going on. She got diagnosed with bipolar disorder or something like that when I was like, twelve.”

Sean reached his hand out tentatively to Finn’s and grasped it gently from his lap to offer whatever comfort he could.

“I don’t have any pictures or anything," Finn said, his eyes flicking to the photo of Karen for a brief moment, then away. "Wouldn’t want ‘em anyway, I guess. But I just thought…maybe…y’know. But what I want to say is…don’t be mad at your mom forever. Forgivin’, it ain’t like…like you’re saying that what they did was okay. It’s you saying that they don’t have that power over you anymore. Forgive what she done, just don’t forget it. That’s the important part.”

“I don’t know if I know how to…forgive,” Sean admitted, and Finn just squeezed his hand lightly.

“Family is family,” he said. “But it’s up to you to decide what that means to you. I can’t…tell you what to do. Or what not to.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for a relationship,” Sean said suddenly, and he felt Finn's hand waver in his own. “I can barely even keep it together with Daniel, and I’ve known him his whole life.”

“That’s cool…” Finn sighed, pulling his hand away. “I can respect that.”

He leaned back into the cushions of the couch and closed his eyes, hands clasped over his stomach.

“I dunno, man,” he said. “I mean…I guess I’m just glad I got to have a little piece of you.” He held up a small space between his fingers, then let it fall. “For a while.”

“I’m really sorry for the way I acted about my mom, Finn,” Sean said. “It’s just so hard…to focus on anything, not when I have to watch out for Daniel all the time. Being here, with you, it’s made me think about so much that I’d rather have just forgotten. For better or worse.”

“I understand,” Finn said, but Sean didn’t know if that was true. “Just gotta…deal with you and your own, and I got much respect for that, y’know? I’m glad Daniel has you to know what’s best for the both of you. Don’t think I fit much into that, do I? But it’s cool, though.”

“Finn, you fit perfectly well,” he said, putting his hand out on Finn’s knee as the other boy always did to him. “Don’t ever worry about that. There’s just so much shit going on in my life right now. And I’m so confused about what I should do.”

“Another life, right?” Finn raised his eyebrows almost patronizingly. He’d obviously been down this road before. He shook his head, and said, “Always is…always is.”

“Finn,” Sean said softly, his hand still placed on Finn's knee. “I’m still here for you, I don’t want you to think I’m not.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” He leaned forward again and patted Sean on the back and then let his hand fall, perhaps lingering for a moment too long on the skin of his almost lover. “Guess that’s just the nature of the game. Nothing lasts. So fuck it all.”

Their voices fell into silence, a silence which Sean couldn't decide was comfortable or not. He hoped it was.

“I just have…one question, though,” Finn asked.

“Of course.”

“If I…if…” Finn swallowed. “Which part of me is wrong?”

“Wrong?” Sean asked. “What do you mean?”

“Hold on, I asked that wrong. That isn’t what I meant." Finn took a moment to breathe and gather his thoughts. "I already know which part it was. If I was somebody else…like… _a girl_. Would that’ve changed things?”

“Finn, I’ve never dated a girl either,” Sean said, but Finn shook his head.

“I know…” he said, “but…let’s say you hooked up with Cassidy, instead of me…would that’ve been as hard to deal with? Since it’s more, like, guaranteed? Y’know what you’re gonna get. But with me…do you think, it’s just too real? Like it was fun…but it wasn’t what you really wanted?”

"Finn, you know how much I care about you," Sean said, but Finn just shook his head solemnly.

“Do you really want a life, with any guy?" Finn asked, pulling his head up from where he'd been staring at his own lap and finally made eye contact with Sean. "You’d be giving up a wife…and a family. Sure, we had fun…but I take this shit serious, Sean. I’m not here to mess with your emotions and all that. I just wanna know if you’re really in, so I can know what this really was. I mean I’m happy to help you figure out your feelings, but please, don’t make me think you want more than you really do. I’d like to think I can protect my own, like, heart…and stuff…so, please, just be honest with me. So I can know.”

Sean opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn't sure that there was anything to say, yet, so Finn continued.

“Liking guys…" he said, "And being gay, bi, whatever…it’s not about whether you’d let some guy get you off. I mean, fuck, you can just do that with you own hand, right? Sex don’t mean a thing by itself. Liking guys…it’s like this. So, I don’t believe in love at first sight. Sure, somebody can attract you, but you don’t know a fucking thing about them. What if they don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste after they brush their teeth? What if they don’t hold doors for strangers? Leave garbage at the movie theater? Shit like that. You won’t know those things until you get to know them for real. What I do believe in is love at second sight. As in…looking at someone and knowing that, even if I don’t love them now, I can see myself loving them eventually.”

“It’s not about whether or not you do love…me,” he said, struggling to say the word ‘me’ as if it was a forbidden one. “But whether or not you _could_. Someday.”

“Finn, I…” Sean sighed. "I know. And that’s why I’m trying my best. I don’t want you to think that I’m not there for you.”

To seal those words, Sean placed a simple kiss on Finn’s cheek, which made the other boy pull from him in surprise.

“Wait, what?” He leaned away from Sean, a look of amused confusion on his face, regarding Sean in a kind of bizarre wonder.

“What?” Sean asked.

“You just kissed me,” Finn said, his brow flicking up for a second and then dropping as he looked away. “I’m getting some very mixed signals here.”

“Did you think we were breaking up?” Sean asked.

“Well, fuck…yeah? What were you goin’ on about then?”

“I said I wasn’t sure if I was ready yet. But that didn’t mean I was bailing on you. I was just letting you know that I’m bad at this.”

“Fucking hell, Sean.” Finn clapped his right hand over his own heart dramatically. “You scared the shit outta me. I was just tryin’ to keep the damn ants in my pants. I thought we were ending things.”

“Sorry," Sean said with a sheepish smile. "I'm not so good at talking about my feelings. You’ve helped me a lot with that, though, with the way you’re always so honest about everything.”

“Yeah…" Finn sighed, biting his lip in consideration. "And…not to dig up old wounds, or anything...but I’m still really sorry about Merrill’s. I know I almost…fucked you guys over, with that one. I just wasn’t thinking right. Just got so caught up in the money that I forgot about everything else. I’m really, _really_ sorry, Sean. And I just…I hope you can forgive me for that. I hope you know how sorry I really am.”

“I know, Finn…” Sean said and gave a small smile. “I know you are.”

“My dad…he used to tell me…the ends justify the means. We stole fucking everything. The cars he sold were all lifted from wherever the hell we could get ‘em, always cheap, nearly dead. But he’d say, y’know, ‘It’s not our problem once it leaves the lot.’ My only job was to strip and flip those cars, not to make sure they worked once some poor sucker drove off in ‘em.”

Finn stopped to rub at his bottom lip, his hands needing something to fidget with. Sean reached out to grab Finn's hand in his own as a distraction. 

“He’d say… ‘If you steal something, and they don’t catch you…you earned it. But if they do? You deserved to get caught.’ Thought I was, like, fucking invincible, or something. He never said whether or not I’d deserve to be betrayed. Guess that wasn’t…part of the equation.”

Sean put his other hand on Finn's shoulder and trailed it up to cup the side of his neck, thumbing over a tattoo he had there comfortingly.

“With what my dad and I used to do," he continued, "it was all about gettin’ it done quick and cheap. It was the shortcut to the end, which was the sale. It was all about the profit, all about the numbers. We weren’t fixing up _good_ cars. Fuck no. The whole point was to sell as many as we could, as fast as we could. I’ve never really…done anything that takes time. All I know is right now. I don’t know how to wait for anything, really. Don’t know how to just, let things happen, or build up to them. Guess that’s why I blow through all the money I make.”

He put his own hand up to cover Sean's on his neck, reveling in that warmth.

“I don’t know how to make anything last," he said quietly. "I have this vague idea of what I want my life to be, but fuck, man…I don’t have a single fucking idea how to get there.”

“Well…if it helps," Sean said. "I don’t think I know what I’m doing either.”

“Well, I think we're both-"

“Sean!”

At the sound of Sean's name being called from back at camp, the two of them both looked at one another in humored surprise and they dropped their hands, raising their brow at one another jokingly.

_Daniel._

“Duty calls,” Finn said, his voice playful but distant, like he was tired out from their serious talk and just needed some time to himself to recharge.

“He probably just got bit by another spider.” Sean sighed deeply and ran the palm of one hand over his eyes and through his hair. “I’ll be back.”

“Mhm.” Finn nodded with a small, tight-lipped smile. “Tell him Uncle Finn sends his condolences.”

Sean pushed up from the couch with a sigh and stretched his arms out over his head.

“Hey, uh…wait,” Finn said, grabbing Sean’s hand before he got too far away. He pulled his lover gently to usher him back to him, to which he released Sean’s hand to trail his own up the other boy’s arm to his shoulder, pulling him down to kiss him on the lips yet again.

“Just…one more time,” he said, and leaned up to wrap his arms around Sean as if to melt the two of them into one.

“I’m not dying,” Sean said jokingly into Finn’s shoulder, yet still embracing him back with a similar intensity.

“I know,” Finn whispered, keeping his chin held securely in the crook of Sean’s shoulder, molding himself into the spaces of his lover’s body.

When Sean pulled away, Finn lightly pushed up Sean’s chin with his index and middle finger as he always did, in a kind of unspoken “keep your chin up” implication.

Being an introvert didn’t mean being shy, Sean had come to realize. Because Finn was exactly that. A social introvert, someone who loved to be around people and make quite the scene every time he entered a room, but whose social battery still had a set point that could run out at any given time. Sean could always tell when Finn was growing languid in his movements, his words, where he'd become a bit quieter, and less his usual animated self. Both of these sides of him were still _Finn_ , but required different treatments of care and love.

While embraced, Finn reached a hand up to grasp at Sean's earlobe, pinching it lightly between his fingers and leaning his head back to look at it.

“What?” Sean asked, grinning just slightly in curiosity of what Finn found so suddenly interesting about him.

“I think your ears are lookin’ a little bare,” he said, running his thumb along the shell of both Sean’s ears, then pulling on his lobes again. “You know what we should do? I think I can…hm…I think I can hear my inner punk rock god calling out to me…and he’s saying… ‘Seanie-boy needs an ear piercing.’”

“Is he now?" Sean said sarcastically. "Well I think I’m gonna have to say no fucking way. No offense, Finn’s inner punk rock god.”

“What?” Finn pulled away and laid back on the couch, putting his hands loosely on his stomach. “And miss out on the opportunity to have a part of your body stabbed by me in a potentially unsanitary way? Now that is just tragic. Y’all best be knowing you can’t join the armies of the dirty hippies until you get a piercing done in the middle of the woods by an unqualified, yet very enthusiastic piercer, who also happens to be quite fetching and honestly probably the greatest person you’ll ever meet. Because, let’s face it, after me? Oh fuck, it’s all downhill from there. Trust me.”

“I’ll have to think about it," Sean said with a smile he couldn't hold in, their hands still linked despite Finn having lain back down.

“Sean!” Daniel called again. “Did you hear me? Come over here!”

“Just a second, Daniel!" he called back.

“Now please! Sean!”

“Can you at least tell me what it is?”

“I spilled a soda earlier and a bunch of butterflies are all over the spot where I dropped it!” Daniel said. “It’s _so_ cool, Sean.”

Sean rolled his eyes jokingly and Finn laughed. 

“What if we just left?” Finn said suddenly, still holding onto Sean’s hands to prevent him from leaving just yet. “Just the two of us?”

“What?” Sean backed up an inch or two in surprise, as if needing to get a better look at this person who’d just suggested something so serious.

“Daniel too, he could come. So, the three of us. We don’t have to stay here.”

“But what about the others?” Sean asked, taking a glance back at camp as he spoke.

“They’ll be totally fine, trust me,” Finn said.

“But we need the money.”

“There’s money everywhere.” Finn made a small sweeping motion with his hand as if to reference this specific brand of ‘everywhere’. “They print it every day and there’ll always be more. But this,” he pointed between the two of them, “this isn’t money.”

Sean teetered back and forth on his feet, trying to quickly run the logistics on this suggestion in his head as fast as possible. 

“Think about it?” Finn asked hopefully.

“Alright,” Sean said with a smiled sigh. “I’ll think about it.”

“Just like the piercing?”

“Yes,” Sean said with a short laugh. “Just like the piercing.”

Finn seemed overjoyed that Sean had agreed and he pulled him back down into his chest to hug him as closely as they could possibly be, with Finn’s arms around Sean’s neck and Sean’s around his middle.

“I love you, man,” he said, holding their foreheads together as if to transfer energy through their skin. Finn always seemed to act like they could never be close enough.

“Mm...te quiero, paracaidista,” Sean said teasingly, and Finn made a face.

“Para-what?” he asked with a quirked and curious smile, pulling his face away to get a good look at Sean. “What’s that mean?”

Sean shrugged in feigned ignorance, grabbing onto Finn’s right hand and tapping on his tattoo there, which was of a circle with a capital N through it, saying, “Guess you’ll just have to figure it out.”

“Oh, uh-huh,” Finn said with a smile, all the while still holding onto Sean’s hand. “I see how it is.”

They shared a last gazing embrace, and then off Sean went to catch up with Daniel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song title is a lyric from Tracy Chapman's song, _Fast Car_.


	10. The Child Within My Heart

Yesterday, he, that is Sean, was sixteen. Today, he is still sixteen, plus one day. His brother was ten yesterday. And today, he is also still that same age, but with an extra day attached. Daniel said that he doesn’t feel ten, though; he said that he still feels nine, feels eight, seven, six…none.

Their ages are the same, and yet as each day passes, perhaps things  _have_  changed.

Maybe that is because Daniel still  _is_  nine, and eight, and all of those other ages, at the same time. Maybe when we age, we don’t leave behind the numbers that we were, and instead, we add to them, building on top of the last like bricks that make up a wall. Stacked and molded together, we can step back and look at everything that we are now, weighing down on everything that we used to be. And though we may not live it anymore, it still exists. And this matters how we want it to, how we decide it will.

The child that Sean used to be is still there, and he lives as that scared little boy every day of his life. We all act like when we grow up, we forget what it was like to be young, but that just isn’t true. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, actually. Which is what makes it so scary to look at people – kids – who’re living through what you already knew was like, and having to accept that you can’t help them through it.

The thing about aging is that you really can’t see it until you live it. And then, suddenly, you’re twenty. And you look back on teenagers who’re even just a few years younger than you, and you go, shit, man, those are just kids.

And when you were that age, so were you.

But until you reach that point, you won't see it.

And Sean can’t even imagine what being ten and living the life that Daniel does must be like. It's already been difficult enough being sixteen and having to deal with all of this, so to be just ten years old and have to carry the immense pressure of your whole life being flipped on its head that young must be absolute chaos.

They always say that youth is wasted on the young in a petty, jealous way, using it to insult kids and how they don’t appreciate what they have until it’s gone.

But that just isn’t true either.

The real tragedy of youth is that kids genuinely don’t have the ability to appreciate the freedom their young age offers them. Youth in and of itself is tragically bittersweet, because kids quite literally cannot appreciate it as they lack the self-awareness to understand how special what they have is. And adults wouldn’t be able to live through youth again, because with the knowledge they’d gained through life experience, that blissful ignorance of being young would be lost on them.

What makes youth special is hindsight, which breeds nostalgia. And neither of these things can exist as we're living them. They can only be attained once the moment has been lost.

Sean never wanted to cry in front of Daniel. He didn't want to show his brother the child within his heart that was terrified of every waking moment of his life.

Didn’t want to show him how much of a kid he still really was himself. Or how badly he needed to be held by someone the way he holds Daniel when that boy cries. How greatly he wished their dad could just miraculously come back to life. If he could only recapture a single moment in time with their dad, once more, that would be all he needed.

He hated that the culmination of their dad’s life could fit into just a tiny little photograph now. So flimsy, so disposable. But that was all they had left. What really is a life, if in the end, it can be held in the palm of your hand, an eternity in a single picture. Something that could so easily be lost or thrown away, something so tangible yet so impermanent, so fragile. 

The only person Sean felt that he could go to for comfort was Finn, but even then, Sean was afraid to let himself be truly vulnerable, because he feared allowing those emotions to come out and then not being able to take them back. Once it was all out there, he was afraid that maybe Finn would get bored of him. That once he’d revealed everything about himself, then he’d have nothing left to give.

He trusted Finn, that much was true. But the self-doubt he imbued in himself always kept him an arm's length away. It wasn't Finn's fault that these thoughts wouldn't leave him, but he couldn't help but wonder if maybe Finn's apparent nonchalance about so many things was what was leading Sean to feel more insecure about becoming fully vulnerable. 

 

It was quite warm near the banks of the lake that midday, with March pushing way to April, the burning Californian sun unusually heated for this time of year. 

Sean and Daniel were down at the water, training again, that Saturday. Or, well,  _Daniel_  was training, while Sean was sitting on the sidelines kind of watching, kind of not watching. It'd been a long morning, and the day was barely even half over. He hadn't slept well the night before, and was feeling the effects of a lack of sleep weigh down on him in sluggish waves of exhaustion and stinging eyes.

“Sean, look!”

Daniel came sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him from the banks of the lake, levitating a small fish in the air in front of him, which wiggled wildly around, trying to get away. He stopped in front of Sean, splashing him a little bit from having approached so fast, and then held the fish up so his older brother could see it.

“I caught a fish!” he said, smiling so brightly and proudly that he might just burst at the seams. The front of his shirt was all wet from the water, as were the bottoms of his pants.

 _He_ was having a good day, at least. 

“That’s nice, Daniel,” Sean said, but he wasn’t really looking. His eyes were going to the places he sent them, but they weren’t seeing much of anything, as his mind was elsewhere.

If this were the first time that Daniel had done this, Sean might’ve been able to muster more excitement. But no. Daniel caught fish all the time these days, having first done so over a month prior.

“I’m gonna go catch another one,” Daniel said, quite matter-of-factly, and then slowly rotated where he stood, all the while with his hand still posed in front of him. As he walked away, he carefully lowered the fish back into the water and it sped away in a surprised flurry beneath the surface.

“Alright,” Sean said, laying back on the picnic blanket he was on by the edge of the water. “Just remember not to get too far away from me, okay? I’m gonna close my eyes for a bit.”

“I won’t!” Daniel exclaimed. “Promise! I’ll just be...over there again!” 

He pointed off to the place about ten or fifteen feet away where he’d been standing before and Sean nodded lazily before readjusting his lain position and closing his eyes.

It was about lunchtime, somewhere around eleven-thirty in the morning, and just cloudy enough that it kept the full intensity of the sun off of their skin, which Sean was grateful for on this warm day. He had made sure to buy sunblock for Daniel to protect him, much to the behest of the boy who had to wear it. Every morning, Sean would make him sit for a few minutes so he could lather his face, neck, and arms up in the stuff, which especially made him feel quite like an overprotective parent.

“You know what I wish we had out here, Sean?” Daniel called out from his place in the water.

Sean opened his eyes sleepily and blinked a few times to wake himself back up. He leaned up on his elbows to see Daniel walking back towards him again. Maybe it had been longer, but it felt like it’d only been about five minutes. Knowing Daniel, maybe it had only been two.  

He lay back down and closed his eyes again, then parroted back with, “What do you wish we had out here?”

Daniel plopped down next to him on the blanket and took a drink of water out of his canteen nearby. “I wish we had pool floaties, so we could blow one up and go out further in the water, like a boat!”

“We could probably find one,” Sean suggested, though the idea of this made him think back on what Finn had proposed to him before, that the three of them leave this place. Which would mean no more lake, and thus, no pool floaties.

“Really?” Daniel asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm. “That’d be super cool.”

Sean threw his arm over his eyes to create more darkness so he could rest, and Daniel patted his hands on his own knees absentmindedly like he was bored or just so full of energy that he didn't know how else to exert it.

“Oh, Sean?” Daniel chirped, pulling him back away from the edge of sleep again and reaching over to grab onto Sean’s wrist that was over his face. “Did you hurt your arm?”

Sean jerked back hastily from his brother, which led to him receiving a confused look at his sudden response.

He’d been covering the spot where he’d cut himself beneath the sleeves of his hoodie for some time now to make sure Daniel the Nosy didn’t point it out. But since it'd been getting warmer lately, he was finding it more and more difficult to wear long sleeves. It had mostly healed up at this point, but was still obviously in the shape and size of what a cut would look like, possibly eventually ending in a scar. He’d hoped it would heal faster, but that’s the thing about stuff you want to happen in a certain way. They don’t.

“I just...cut it on some glass I found around here,” he said, spinning that tale on the spot. “So, be careful.”

“I haven’t seen any glass,” Daniel retorted, as if he had to have seen it as well for it to actually exist. “But, okay. I’ll be careful.”

Sean nodded but didn't continue the discussion, not wanting to encourage Daniel to ask anymore questions about that particular topic. He settled his hands over his stomach, this time with his wrist resting against his body so Daniel wouldn't look at it.

“Sean?” Daniel asked. “Could we have s’mores tonight?”

“Yeah,” Sean said tiredly. “Sure…sounds good.”

Daniel nodded, running his hands over the blanket beneath him absentmindedly, the sound of the fabric making a soft scratching sound as his skin moved across it. He stood up quickly, then, not having lingered for long, and jetted back out to the water. Sean could barely keep him still for five seconds these days, and he knew Daniel would run all the way to the moon if there was a path. 

It was also true that, _these days_ , Sean rarely found a moment to himself, and that lack of peaceful solitude weighed heavily on him, its weight growing ever stronger as each day passed. There was nobody in the world and all the sky and every ocean that Sean loved and cared more fiercely for than his little brother, but never being able to take time for himself to recharge and gather his thoughts (and maybe have a little bit of a private mental breakdown) was taking a heavy toll. Daniel wasn't always with him, of course, but at the times that he was, Sean sometimes wished the world would stop, give him time to rest for a few weeks, maybe even months...just so he could find some peace of mind. If ever he needed an easy way out, maybe it was now. He just wanted everything to stop, to go away, to disappear.

He wanted to cease to exist.

It was an incredible responsibility of fate in which he became his brother's keeper, but also, a terrible burden of circumstance.

“Hey, gang.”

From behind Sean, Finn was walking up from the camp pathway with a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. He waved at Sean with the hand holding the bottle as he approached.

On the picnic blanket, Finn plopped down and sat with his legs spread out across it and crossed at the ankle, setting the wine bottle down next to them, and then making a move to unscrew the cork from the top.

“So,” he said, twisting the cork-screw, “how’re the kids?”

Sean scoffed humoredly and nodded, saying, “He’s good, seems to be having a pretty good day. So far.”

“Mm,” Finn nodded, now pouring wine into the two glasses he'd brought, “Just 'so far'?”

“The day’s still young,” Sean said with a quick raise of his brow, and Finn laughed.

“Well...I think you'll need this,” Finn said, holding out one of the glasses he’d poured to Sean, who accepted it gratefully.

“Yeah,” Sean said, “thank you.”

He took a small sip and tasted it thoughtfully, though he couldn’t say much about it other than that it was really fucking good since he’d never had that much wine in his life before. Sometimes his dad would let him have a little bit at dinner, but he'd never really been super fond of the taste. These days, though, he'd drink just about anything if it had alcohol in it. 

All above them, in the trees, birds chirped quirkily in ambient conversation, fluttering all about the lakeside as if talking about their days and going about their business. Sean wondered what they might be saying to one another, and if they had just as complicated of lives as he and his friends did.

He lay back down where he had been before, his left leg stretched out flat and his right bent up at the knee. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of the faint sunlight on his face. He’d gotten a few shades tanner since having spent so much time outside these days, which of course, Finn lamented on and proclaimed how much more beautiful it made him. 

Finn looked all around them, taking in their surroundings and sipping occasionally from his own glass. He watched as Daniel used his power on different things in the water, that boy practically looking like he was water-bending out there in the lake. At one point, Daniel spun a spiral of water and sent it shooting over to Finn to circle around him, then flew it back out to the lake where he dropped it down again.

“Think you can make a shape?” Finn asked, and Daniel nodded happily, obviously eager to show off his abilities, as always. 

He put both his hands out towards the water and seemed to vibrate with energy as that power surged throughout his body, drops of water slowly raising before him and collecting in a small mass like a ball.

It took a little bit of time and some careful shaping and molding, but eventually, all those drops of water had been formed into a small sea otter, which Daniel then turned and sent swimming through the air, making it do tricks all across the surface of the water and then moved over to Finn where he had it run and play around the other boy. It did flips overtop the picnic blanket, ran circles around them, and even came up beside Finn's face and flicked one of his dreads with a watery paw.

Daniel could only use his powers for short periods of time, so after a minute or two, he returned the water to where he’d picked it up and had the otter do one last dramatic dive beneath the surface before he released his hold on it.

Finn clapped and whooped encouragingly from the sidelines, and Daniel seemed happy to receive the praise.

“That was amazing, Daniel!” Finn called out to him, giving him a one-handed shaka sign with his hand, and Daniel took a short bow out in the water. “You are so fucking cool, man. Nobody else but you can do stuff like that I bet. Super. Freaking. Awesome.”

He looked over to see Sean with his eyes closed and smiled against the edge of his glass where he'd been drinking from it. Laying back himself, he leaned onto his elbow, facing Sean, and looked down at him where he lay. Sean, still awake, was spinning his index finger around the inner rim of his own glass beside him on the grass absentmindedly, tilting it around on a pivot. Finn reached out his left hand and lightly traced down the silhouette of Sean’s face.

“What?” Sean asked, opening his eyes at the feeling of his skin being touched and smiling in curiosity.

“D’you ever think about how…each and every one of us came from somewhere?”

"What do you mean?" Sean asked with a smile still on his face. He found it difficult to meet Finn's eyes sometimes, when they were this close, so he flicked his gaze between Finn's lips as he spoke, the tattoos on his face, and then down at nothing in particular.

“Like, we all lived parts of our lives away from each other before we met. We were all born, and our parents were born, and their parents were born, and their parent’s parents were born, and so on down the line. And we all were raised, and fed, and kept alive up to this point. And now, here we are. Together. It’s crazy.”

Sean reached his hand up to Finn's face and played with the end of one of his dreads, thumbing over the brassy beads held tightly to the hair.

“You could be sitting here with someone else entirely," Finn said. "But you’re not. You’re here with me. And that’s gotta mean something.”

Sean pulled his lips into his mouth, holding back a shy smile, then held up his glass in front of him and said, “Dude. Cheers,” to which Finn brought his own up to meet it in a mutual glassy tap.

“Cheers.”

They both took a drink and then looked out to see what Daniel was doing, but he wasn't facing them, and instead was chasing some ducks around in the water.

“So…" Finn said, tipping his glass slightly to look inside. "Have you thought about...what I said?”

"Yeah," Sean said with a nod, reaching out to grab onto Finn's bandana wrapped around his neck, feeling the material. "I have."

"And?" Finn asked, obviously trying to hold back his hopeful tone. "What...uh...whaddya think?"

"You really wanna know?" Sean asked with his brow raised teasingly.

"Well,  _yeah,_ " Finn said with a small laugh. "I  _really_  do."

"Alright," Sean said, looking back out to the water. "Then I'll tell you."

He cupped his hand around his mouth and called out, “Hey, Daniel!"

The other boy in the water turned around at the sound of his voice and said back, “Yeah, Sean?”

“Could you come here a minute?” he asked, sitting up and scooting over so that Daniel could come and sit right beside him.

Coming back quickly and obviously excited to hear what his brother had to say, Daniel plopped down in the spot that Sean had made for him, feet still wet and his pant legs rolled up to his knees.

“Sean,” Daniel asked before his brother could get a word out, eyeing the wine bottle sitting on the blanket. “Could I please try…one sip?”

“You’re not gonna like it,” Sean said, spinning his drink slightly in his glass.

“I don’t care,” Daniel said, and Finn smirked with a shrug at Sean, who had looked to him as if asking for a suggestion on whether or not to let him.

“Alright,” Sean conceded, handing his own glass over to Daniel. “Just this once.”

He grabbed it excitedly and spun in around in the glass like how wine-tasters do, though Sean knew that Daniel had no idea what he was actually doing. He took a small sip from the glass and smacked his lips.

Daniel made a face like he'd just tasted something very sour, and then handed the glass back, wiping his mouth off, and saying, "Ugh...nevermind."

Sean laughed and set the glass off to the side, then took on a more serious tone before he moved forward with what he'd originally called Daniel over for.

“How would you feel…about leaving?” he asked.

Daniel quirked his head at the question, his eyes going to their bottom right corners in thought at this suggestion.

“Leaving?” he asked curiously. “Like…leaving the camp?”

“Yeah!” Sean said encouragingly. “Just us…and Finn.”

Daniel perked up slightly, looking up at Sean, then to Finn, then back again, like he didn't know who he was supposed to look at.

“Finn?” he asked. “You want to come too?”

“It was actually his idea,” Sean said, and Daniel nodded with his mouth slightly open like he was about to speak.

“Hm…” he said, “Well…if Finn will be there, then…I think it sounds like...a good idea."

“Really?” Finn asked with a childlike smile.

"Yep!" Daniel said. "But only if it's all three of us. I think it's better that way." He nodded at his own words like it was an indisputable truth.

"Well, then, it's settled," Finn said, holding out his hand in front of him. "We're outta here. First chance we get."

Daniel immediately reached out and put his hand over Finn's, and then Sean added his own, all three of them lifting them back up in the air in promise.

 

Later that night, the three of them returned to the banks of the water alongside Cassidy, with Finn having suggested that they find more ways to train Daniel’s power.

Finn had gathered up different things from around the area to throw into the air so Daniel could try and catch them, hit them, throw them, et cetera. 

He'd been able to stop small plates from breaking that Finn had thrown, catching balls he'd tossed far away from them into the air, creating more shapes out of the water from the lake. Cassidy had even suggested that he try to levitate one of them so that they could float up to the top of a tree, but Daniel found that task too difficult. Lifting people must take extra energy, Sean thought.

While the three of them played by the water, running around trying to think of different things for Daniel to test his powers on, Sean was sitting off to the side nearby a tree, watching from the sidelines with a beer in his hand that had mostly gone untouched. He sees Daniel's powers every day, and has so for basically the past six months. But for the others, this was something new and crazy to play around with, so while he always preferred to be there as a chaperone, he didn't feel the need to be in on the action anymore. As per Finn's suggestion, Sean allowed Daniel some freedom to use his powers even when Sean wasn't right there controlling everything he did. 

Right now, they were playing darts, with Daniel obviously getting a bull's eye every single time. None of the others were anywhere close.

“Little dude never fucking misses, he’s golden!” Finn said, putting up both his hands to give Daniel a double-handed high-five.

"Thanks, Finn," Daniel said, giving a proudly toothy smile. "I think I'm better because you're helping me."

Sean knew that was such a lie.

He knew Daniel liked hanging out with Finn more than him these days, because of that freedom the Finn always gave to him in treating him like a little adult. Though he knew that his own brother wouldn't just abandon him for someone else, he couldn’t help but still be jealous, in some kind of way. All the way out here, Sean had nothing. His entire life had been flipped up on its head the second their dad was shot, and nothing would ever bring that world back to him.

Things may get rough, and sometimes, it may feel like there isn't anything worth surviving for anymore, but nothing in the world could take away his connection to his brother. He knew they'd always be together, even when they weren't, and it hurt him to imagine a world where that wouldn't be possible. 

“Haha, watch this,” Daniel said, holding his hand up while facing Sean and lifting the bottle out of Sean’s hands jokingly, hovering it over his head where he couldn’t reach it, and then having it encircle him.

Sean just rolled his eyes with crossed arms. He wasn't upset or anything, but it'd just been a long few days. And he didn't always have the energy to be the best big brother he could.

“Sean,” Daniel said, feigning worry in his tone, “I-I think your beer is  _haunted.”_

“Yes, hardy-har,” Sean said, hands on his hips with a slight smile just to show non-aggression. “Very funny.”

Daniel pretended to tip it over slightly, as if to pour it overtop Sean’s head, but then flipped it back up properly at the last second, then sending it flying through the air all around them, bumping it on top of Cassidy’s head, then Finn’s, then back over to Sean.

“Alright,” Sean said, “Gimme back my beer, please.”

When Daniel ignored him with a sly grin, Sean reached up into the air to try and catch it himself, though not making that much of an effort. It’s not like he was gonna chase it all over camp if Daniel insisted on being annoying about it. 

Daniel would let Sean almost grab it, and then jerk it out of his hand again to tease him, throwing it all over the place and relishing in the fact that Finn seemed to be loving this just as much as Daniel was. Even Sean was laughing now, to some extent, it being so late at night and everybody (except Daniel) being kind of buzzed. 

When it got close enough to touch, Sean grabbed onto it firmly and tried to hold it as tightly as he could to keep it from flying off again.

With a loud smashing sound, the bottle in Sean's grip exploded as if he'd had the strength to squeeze it so hard that it would bust. But he didn't have that power. Daniel did.

Everyone, including Sean, stood frozen still for a fast moment of silence, while they all took in what had just happened.

Sean's hand fell limp at his wrist and he just stared at it, trying to process what Daniel had done.

It wasn't until lines of blood began to run from multiple cuts across the skin of his hand that anyone reacted.

“Sean!" Daniel said, standing still and afraid to come any closer. "I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

“Sean, are you okay?” Cassidy asked, running over to where he stood and immediately reaching out for his hand, to which he allowed her to do so.

“I didn’t mean it, Sean!” Daniel pleaded again, practically in tears at that point. “It wasn’t on purpose! I was – I was just trying to lift it out of your hands!”

 _“Fuck,_  Daniel,” Sean said, biting his bottom lip almost to a point of pain, and digging his nails into the skin of his left forearm to distract from the pain. “You have to be careful.”

Cassidy rotated Sean’s hand in her own to see the damage, holding it carefully to avoid touching any place that’d been struck by a piece of glass. 

Most of the bottle had broken into large pieces that had fallen into the grass, but because of how tightly Sean had been holding it, he’d accidentally crushed small and sharp shards right into his skin, which were now sticking out quite painfully.

If he’d known that it was a possibility for Daniel to do that, he wouldn’t have even tried to catch it.

Daniel didn’t come over to him, and instead stood closer to Finn as if looking to use him as a buffer from his brother. He was close to being in hysterics, but Finn had his hand on Daniel’s shoulder to calm him down, bent at his side to equal their heights out more.

”You okay, little man?” he asked, and Daniel nodded.

”Yeah,” he said with a sad sniffle. “I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident.” 

“We know it was,” Finn said. “It’s okay.”

Daniel looked back over at Sean who was wincing as Cassidy attempted to pull some shards out of his hand.

“How about we get Sean cleaned up and then we all just forget about it and go play hide n’ seek in the dark?” Finn suggested, standing back up straight and stepping out into the middle of everyone to diffuse the situation. “How ‘bout that?”

Sean looked between Finn and Daniel, and then said, “Alright...just...give me a few minutes.”

“I can clean you up, back at camp,” Cassidy said. “Hannah’s good at this kinda stuff too, so she can help.”

”Okay,” Sean said. “Let’s just...hurry.”

He saw how horribly depressing the look on Daniel’s face was, so he mustered up the best smile he could, and said, “Hurry...so we can play hide and seek.” 

Daniel perked up at that, obviously feeling relieved that Sean wasn’t upset and thus excited to play their game. 

“I want…Finn! For my team,” Daniel said, grabbing onto Finn’s forearm excitedly and rubbing away the last tears from his eyes. “We’re the best team at hide and seek. We  _always_  win.”

"That's because you're like my secret weapon, little man," Finn said, mussing up Daniel's hair with his hand. "Is it cool, Sean? If Daniel comes with me?" 

Sean nodded and said, "Yeah...yeah, it's fine."

"We can be partners, Sean," Cassidy said. "And then Hannah and Penny and Jacob can be a team, if they want to join in."

Back at camp, Cassidy enlisted the help of Hannah and the two girls carefully removed all the glass from the skin of Sean’s hand and then disposed of it where it couldn’t be stepped on or anything. They wrapped his hand in gauze and secured it with some tape. It stung a little, but it was alright. When he’d been bleeding right in the moment, it had seemed worse than it really was once he was all cleaned up. 

Out in the woods, they all went to play, and Penny ended up being “it” and was the first to look for everyone. 

Being around Cassidy's seemingly never-ending positivity could sometimes get to be overbearing, as Sean definitely didn't have that kind of personality, but in times like these, he was thankful for her. Though she could be strict with him about serious topics - like stealing from Merrill's - in most other times, she brought a sense of casualness to life that none of the others really did. Perhaps this was because her situation was less dire, in that she left home by choice as opposed to necessity, which gives her a sense of situational awareness that the others have to ignore since they have no choice in living like this. 

She helped Sean look through his life with a lens of self-awareness, helping him take a step back every now and again to remember who he really was, where he came from, and where he hoped to go. 

They spent quite a bit of time together, and he appreciated her for the ways in which she was different from himself, which included being much more level-headed, more apt to have a good time, and being more proactive in taking steps back to fully understand a situation before acting impulsively. 

During the game, they all went pretty deep into the woods, eventually ending up a few minute's walk away from the camp. Cassidy couldn't stop laughing where they were hiding in a little overhang of earth beneath the roots of a tree that had uprooted a bit, so they ended up being found first on account of being too noisy. 

Finn and Daniel had climbed up into a tree and were sitting perched on a strong branch above the ground, only being caught because Finn's leg slipped out from underneath himself on accident and nearly kicked Sean in the head as they passed below them, which ended up being apparently the most hilarious thing in the world to Daniel.

Hannah and Jacob were perhaps the best players in the group because neither of them were very loud or prone to being animated, so once they were hidden, they stayed hidden and as quiet as possible, which made it end up taking about half an hour alone just to find them after the others had been found.

They ended up playing for about an hour and a half, which is quite long for hide and seek normally, but given that they were out in the woods, it was much more difficult to search for everyone.

They switched who was the seeker for the game, and Sean took over the mantle, with Penny and Cassidy then becoming partners. 

It took him about an hour to find everyone, and then they switched again and played through one more game with Cassidy as the one searching since Sean had found her first.

“I think I’m gonna clock out,” Penny said once they all regrouped after a while, his hands on the small of his back as he stretched out. “I feel like I’ve got poison ivy on my ass.”

”Yeah, me too,” Hannah said. “Gotta get up early to fill the water tanks tomorrow.”

”Maybe it's time for all of us to head back,” Cassidy suggested, and Daniel’s face fell.

”One more game?” he asked nicely.

”Nah, bro,” Sean said, patting him on the back with his unwounded hand. “It’s bedtime.”

Cassidy and Penny led the group as they began to head back to camp, with Daniel talking animatedly to Finn about where they could hide when they played again next time. Sean eyed them for a little while before he spoke up on what he'd been thinking.

"Daniel, hang on,” Sean said. “I need to talk to you."

Daniel stopped walking and spun around on the spot to look at his brother, who was lingering a few feet away from the others.

Finn made brief eye contact with Sean and then nodded his head, saying, "We'll, uh...see you back at camp."

Sean waited for a few moments as the others headed off back towards camp, not speaking again until no one else could hear them.

"Daniel," he said quietly once they were out of earshot, "you _really_ need to be more careful."

"I know, Sean," he said, hanging his head sadly. "I didn't mean to do it. I never meant to hurt you."

"You got lucky this time," Sean said. "But it could've been way worse. I only got a couple cuts on my hand, but who knows what you could really do to someone."

Sean's mind momentarily returned to the police officer outside their home in Seattle, but he decided not to bring it up. Now wouldn't have been the best time. 

"What if you had hurt one of the others?" Sean asked more harshly than he'd intended. "Then what would we have done?"

"Yeah," Daniel said bitterly, "but I didn't." He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly, and Sean sighed, deciding that he needed to diffuse the situation.

"Listen," Sean said, "I'm proud of you, despite what happened." 

Daniel perked up at this, and asked, "Really? Why?"

"Your powers are getting better everyday," Sean said, placing one hand on Daniel's shoulder, "and, soon, maybe you won't need me anymore. You'll be able to...lift a bus, or something."

"Oh," Daniel said proudly, "I can _definitely_ lift a bus."

"Even with people on it?"

" _Especially_ with people on it. I'm like a superhero, remember? Because I'm Superwolf. And nothing can stand in my way."

"Okay, Superwolf," Sean said. "Well, you think you can Super-sleep tonight? It's been a long day, and you need some rest."

"Totally," Daniel said coolly. "And...thank you, Sean. For not, getting upset with me."

"No problem. That's what awesome big brothers are for."

Daniel smiled brightly and then hugged Sean around his middle, burying his face in his brother's shirt and holding himself there for a few moment's pause. He pulled away then and started to head back to camp, taking the lead as Sean followed.

They walked quietly for a little bit of time, just listening to the sounds of the night all around them, the buzzing cicadas, the wind within the trees, the rushing of the water nearby.

“Sean?” Daniel piped up eventually. 

“Yes, Daniel?” Sean asked, aiming his flashlight up into the trees above, which made them look quite spooky, as if they were ghost hunters in one of those dramatized reality TV shows.

“Are you afraid of me?”

He stopped dead in his tracks, having passed by Daniel as his brother had stopped walking without him noticing. Sean didn’t turn to him immediately…he had hesitated…and he dreaded to admit that this question had given him that kind of pause.

“No, never,” Sean said, recomposing himself almost instantly and turning around to face his brother. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose, enano. And hey, maybe I should know better than to mess with such a badass superhero next time.”

“But  _why?”_  Daniel asked in a harsh outward breath, shaking his head at nothing in particular. Frustration, perhaps.  _Futile_ …frustration.

“Why what? Sean asked confusedly, perhaps with worry in his tone. He aimed the flashlight towards the ground as he stood there, illuminating only the dirt and leaves beneath Daniel’s feet.

His brother made a severe sort of face, like he was remembering a very unpleasant thing. He still would not look up at Sean, and instead kicked around some sticks near him with his sneaker.

“Why don’t you know better?” he asked crossly.

Sean opened his mouth to respond but it seemed all the air had gone from his lungs. Here was this person standing before him who he only just came to realize he perhaps didn’t know as much as he ever thought he did.

“I-I don’t know,” he admitted, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know.”

Neither of them made eye contact, and Sean wondered if perhaps Daniel had dropped the subject. 

He hadn't.

“Sean?” Daniel spoke again after a few moment’s silence.

“Yes?” Sean asked, worried what he might hear next.

“Do you…miss sadness, when it’s gone?”

“That’s a pretty hard question,” Sean said. “Read that on a fortune cookie?”

Daniel looked sad at his response. He'd been serious, and Sean had made it light of it by mistake.

“Sorry.” Sean cast his eyes down for a moment and swallowed to reset the thoughts in his head. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

“I feel like I have to be sad forever,” Daniel said, picking at the bottom of his shirt. “But I don’t know what I feel.”

“About what, specifically?” Sean asked, and Daniel but his bottom lip anxiously.

“Dad,” he said.

Sean paused. They hadn't talked about their dad for quite some time now.

“Do you not miss him now?” he asked, and Daniel shook his head quickly.

“No!" he said. "That’s not what I mean. I mean I don’t know if I know how to be sad anymore. And since I can’t be sad…I don’t know what to be.”

“You don’t need to be anything, enano. You’re Daniel. And that’s good enough.”

“I don’t want to just be good enough, Sean. That’s like when you always say I’m ‘special’, when you really want to say there’s something wrong with me.”

“There is  _nothing_  wrong with you, Daniel,” he said firmly, holding onto Daniel’s shoulders to steady him and make sure that he knew Sean meant everything he said. “Nothing.”

Daniel shrugged roughly out of his grasp, though, and crossed his arms defiantly over his chest, turning from Sean in a huff. “Then why are we here?” he asked irritably. “Dad died because of me. It’s all my fault…”

“That had nothing to do with your power, Daniel, I-”

“So you agree?” he asked, his hands falling to his hips as he leaned in towards Sean in probe of an immediate answer.

Sean’s heart fell and he had to mentally scramble to pick it back up off the ground where it’d fallen.

“What?” he asked, slightly winded.

“You said it had nothing to do with my power,” Daniel said. “But you didn’t say it didn’t have anything to do with  _me_. So you agree that it’s my fault.”

“I didn’t say that,” Sean said defensively.

“But that’s what you meant, wasn’t it?” Daniel asked, pushing further to find the negative response he seemed to be looking to elicit. He was looking for a fight about this, wanting to be told that he was bad just like he thought.

Sean didn’t answer because his stomach was churning around nervously and this felt like an active mine field he might blow up with every step he took. And to be quite frank, with Daniel? That might actually be true.

When Sean didn’t respond quickly enough, Daniel scoffed loudly and rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said, turning away from his brother. “I’m going back to camp by myself. Don’t follow me.”

“Daniel, please,” Sean pleaded, stepping forward to catch up before Daniel got away. This night had gone from bad to vaguely okay and then back to bad in a matter of just a few short minutes. “Just…just calm down, and we’ll talk about this.”

Daniel pulled his arm out of Sean’s grasp furiously and Sean wondered if he’d already crossed the line dangerously with that move. Daniel's emotions were nearly impossible to navigate these days.

“This is what you always do!” Daniel yelled. “You always tell me what to do and then expect me to listen to it even if it’s stupid.”

“It’s because…I’m the big brother,” Sean said firmly, “and that’s that, Daniel. This isn’t up for debate. I hate when you get like this.”

“There you go again!” Daniel started walking away in the opposite direction. “Sean, I don’t need you to boss me around all the time. I can handle myself.”

“Oh? Like you ‘handled yourself’ today with that broken glass? Way to fucking go, Daniel. You’re such a champ.”

And he regretted it as soon as it came out, but there was nothing he could do to take it back. One thing he and his brother were terrible at was keeping their mouths shut in times of crisis.

“You’re so mean to me, Sean! I thought you said it was fine! Did you lie!?” Daniel yelled, and the trees around them fluttered with an unseen energy, their leaves all rushing similarly in the same direction, towards Sean. “You treat me like there's something wrong with me all the time! And I’m…I’m fucking sick of it!”

“Daniel. _Stop_. I can’t deal with this right now. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Because I’m just in the way, aren’t I? Of your new friends.”

“You don’t get it, man." Sean rolled his eyes. "God, I can’t have anything, can I? I can’t leave you alone for five seconds without you freaking out that I’m not there. But when it’s ‘Daniel time', then suddenly you don’t need me anymore?”

"I'm not trying to make your life hard on purpose!" Daniel yelled, with the wind picking up around them and flowing purposefully at this brother.

And then Sean spoke the worst thing he could say.

“You ruin everything.”

Everything fell still.

And somehow, Sean knew that he couldn’t walk away from this. That this time, it was different.

Those were the worst words he could've said, and once they'd fallen from his lips, he knew he'd really stepped in it.

Daniel’s face dropped to the lowest sort of apathy and hopelessness Sean could ever imagine, and he had to watch in abject terror as his brother turned from being on his side to totally disavowing him in a matter of seconds, right before his eyes.

Daniel turned around quickly and started running back off in the direction of the camp, not stopping or slowing down at all, and Sean could’ve sworn Daniel was running faster than he ever had before, maybe even faster than was even possible for someone his age.

“No, Daniel!” Sean called out. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that, it just came out! Please, wait. Daniel!”

There was no point in running after him. Daniel was obviously faster than him and it would only upset him more if Sean chased after him all the way back to camp, which was probably a good five-to-ten minute walk away. At this point, he could only hope that Daniel made it back safely, because trying to go after him and corral him in the right direction would only make him more upset, and possibly make him more likely to flee.

"Dammit!" he said, kicking at the ground and nothing in particular. He dropped his flashlight onto the ground and covered his face with his hands, kneeling down with bent knees and then screaming into the palms of his hands. 

 

Back at camp, after having headed back by himself, he came to find that all of the others had already returned as well. Sean came in looking like a storm cloud, immediately shooting his eyes to every corner to make sure Daniel had come right back here. From over in the kitchen, Finn looked over at him and laughed lightly, which caught Sean's attention.

“Lose something?” Finn asked, brow raised half-seriously and half-jokingly.

“Why?” Sean asked, now heading directly to where Finn was standing near the sink, his face shown vaguely in the fairy lights above the camp in the trees. “Did you see him?”

Finn chuckled and shook his head, and then said, “If you consider the stowaway I’m now hosting in my tent as having seen him, then, yes. I did see him.”

Sean heaved a sigh of relief and brought his hand to his forehead and eyes to tub tension from them. “Is he okay?” he asked worriedly.

Finn pursed his lips and nodded, saying, “Yes. But, he told me to tell you to leave him alone. So. There you go.” He grinned lightly and Sean rolled his eyes but let out another breath of release.

“If you guys didn’t have such interesting fights all the time,” Finn said amusedly, spooning some powdered hot chocolate into a mug, “the rest of us wouldn’t have fun around here anymore. Always keepin’ it real, right, Sean?” He leaned to feign a joking punch onto Sean’s arm and then returned to fixing the hot chocolate.

“Did he say anything else?” Sean asked, resting against the counter near Finn.

“Mhm.” Finn nodded with tightened lips to hold back a smile. “If I remember correctly, he said, and I quote, ‘Don’t tell him where I am.’ Oops, right?”

Sean blew air out melodramatically and then brought his hands up to press the tips of his fingers into his temples, massaging the sleep and vague headache that was forming there.

“Hey,” Finn said calmingly, putting his arm on Sean’s shoulder. “It’ll blow over. He just needs to get it out of his system. I do have to ask, though. Do you…think his powers are what’s making him so angry all the time? I mean, you guys seemed fine like, five minutes ago."

“Oh…” Sean looked down. “I guess I hadn’t actually thought about that before. I've been so focused on everything else…that him having powers kind of just, didn’t factor into me wondering what's been upsetting him.”

“You really need to talk to him about this,” Finn said. “Not now, obviously. But…you need to help him get his anger under control, or who knows what might happen. You could…end up losing an eye, or something. And you gotta stop antagonizing him all the time, dude. It's not helping."

“Could…you, talk to him? For me?” Sean asked, and Finn gave a short laugh.

“No way, José,” he said. “I’m supposed to be the cool older brother, but you, my sweet and wonderful friend,” he pointed into Sean’s chest with both his index fingers, “are supposed to be the responsible one.”

“Please?” Sean begged, and Finn jokingly rolled his eyes and scoffed at Sean’s fakey whining.

" _Sean,”_  he said, “if you don’t do it yourself, he’ll never respect you.”

“Ugh…but it isn’t fair,” Sean said in defeat, putting his hands out flat onto the kitchen counter nearby. He wasn’t upset with Finn, just frustrated at himself because he knew that it was true but didn’t want to hear it.

“You have to show him that you’re the one in charge, or he’ll end up walking all over you. And with _his_ powers? Jesus, Sean, that’s gonna end in flames, I’ll tell ya.”

“I just…I hate that I have to be the parent  _all the time,”_ Sean said. “It’s like I can’t make any mistakes anymore because Daniel’s always there. And whatever I do, it affects him. That’s a lot to handle.”

“Sean,” Finn said. “In the two years of extra life experience I’ve got on me that you don’t, I’m just gonna say that…it actually does get easier. And, that’s coming from a guy who spent half his teenage years in juvy. So. Hopefully my advice is worth something.”

Sean nodded with pursed lips, but didn’t respond.

“The more you push back against him,” Finn said, “the further away he’s gonna pull from you. And, eventually…he’ll be gone entirely.”

“But I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Your only job as a ‘parent’ is to make sure you raise him well enough that he chooses to stay with you even once he has the freedom to go. That’s what bein’ a parent is all about. Not controlling your kids, not forcing them, or changing them to be who you want them to be. It’s about giving them everything you have to try and help them become their best person, and hoping that you did enough. Hoping that, in the future, when you need someone to be there for  _you_ , he’ll be there.”

“You’re right…” Sean said, looking up at Finn from his pouted hunch. “As usual.”

“Damn right I am,” Finn said teasingly, again pushing Sean’s chin up lightly with his fingers. “But that’s why you love me.”

“But what happens if I…fuck him up, or something?”

“That’s why you have more kids! The first kid is the test run, and then after that, smooth sailing…kinda.”

“Gee, thanks. Perfect.”

“Right now, you’ve gotta be kinda the bad cop with him. You’ve gotta be the strict parent. Give it to him straight, lay down the law, and don’t overthink it. Sometimes the truth is just the truth, and that’s all that it is.”

“If I’m the strict parent,” Sean asked, crossing his arms in jovial suspicion, “then what are you?”

“Oh, me?” Finn placed a hand dramatically over his chest. “ _I’m_  the fun parent, which is why I’ve gotta go before he sees me talkin’ to you.”

Finn picked up the mug of hot chocolate he'd made that Sean absolutely knew was for Daniel, and then headed off in the opposite direction back towards his tent.

Before he was gone from sight, Finn blew an air kiss dramatically across the camp, and Sean reached up to catch it in the air and put it in his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is a lyric which comes from Fleetwood Mac's song, _Landslide_.


	11. Blessed With A Curse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW...so it's been a little while, hasn't it? I took a break after the previous chapter because I wanted to wait and see how Episode 4 turned out before moving forward with the story. I had been getting to a point in the story where I wanted to make big changes, but I also wanted to get some more information on the canon game before I took those steps, and now that we know the events of Episode 4, I'm confident moving forward again. That all said, I hope you enjoy! I also see that we now have a canon birthdate for Daniel of April 11th, but for the sake of the story, we'll maintain his birthday as what I've already established because there's no reason to change it now. Thank you all for reading!

When we disappear, does anyone notice?

In that moment when we truly chose to go, can anybody feel it?

And, after death, what’s left of the person who has gone?

Maybe there would be a photograph. Carefully wrapped in a frame, placed upon the wall to gather dust as its only friends. Or maybe there would be a video. An old VHS left lonely in the attic, like a snuff film, meant to capture the raw essence of the deceased. How about a song? Playing out like a death march at a funeral every time you hear it. A fingerprint? Pressed carefully into a glass by the one who had gone, but soon washed away with something as simple as soap and water.

These are all physical things. Tangible things.

Things that can fade away.

What is more important than those unchanging, material things is the way in which someone is still alive. Kept alive. In the minds of those they left behind. In memories. In thoughts. In hearts. This is the only way to reach immortality.

And when the final person who knew us fades away?

That is when we are truly gone.

Sean wondered what everyone must think of him now, back home. He wondered how his image had changed in the eyes of his friends, teachers, neighbors, and if they believed what they saw on TV. He feared that it might be too late, now, for things to ever go back to the way they were. The old Sean was gone, so gone that he might as well have died, and been replaced by this new, pseudo “Sean”, one that he barely recognized every time he remembered that it was him. He’d all but faded from memory at this point, and the Sean that was left behind at their house in Seattle had become trapped there in a never-ending, regretfully hellish nightmare. 

Sean didn’t know where he was supposed to go when everything he thought he’d known was ashes now.

Burnt into ruin, crumbled into tiny pieces that blew away like sand in the wind, like dust in a vacuum. His life in shambles. His heart and mind destroyed like the explosion of a once bright lightbulb that’d overheated and combusted itself.

If he could turn off his own emotions, he would. But people didn’t work like that. People had to feel things. Even if they didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to be a person anymore. Not these days. Not yesterday. And not tomorrow. If time could stop, he would disappear entirely.

There existed inside him a terrible sense. A terrible sense of: What if?

What if he left without Daniel?

What if he left without Finn?

What if he left…without himself?

Maybe these were all baseless wonderings. Or maybe they were something worth understanding about himself. He couldn’t decide which, and he didn’t know if he really wanted to know if these thoughts were true or intrusive. These days, he couldn’t tell the difference.

Finn was nothing. And then something. And now everything, to him.

A stranger, to a friend, to a lover.

Where is the line between all of these things? What prevents one from overlapping with another?

How is your lover not a stranger to you in some ways?

How is a stranger not a friend to you in the moment you capture their eyes from across a crowded room, entering into a momentary dance of affection, an infection of a different kind?

Inside of this, in our minds, we create intricate dances between us and everyone around us, where there is a special sacredness in keeping those dances to ourselves. As if it only exists to and for us, with the rest of the world being blind to it. There is a certain kind of human sacredness in believing that you are special.

For example, math does not exist. What exists is a series of infinite and immutable shapes and forms that we as humans can never truly understand. We invented math to take that infinity and scale it down to size, so that we may _attempt_ to calculate tangibly the immeasurable expanse of the unknown universe. And we apply this exact same concept in our everyday lives.

To acknowledge and accept that we are one single person in a mass of almost eight billion is inconceivable. That amount of people is impossible to comprehend, and so we narrow that broad range down to the intimate bubbles of our own individual social lives.

The more of something, the less it means.

Imagine ten people in front of you.

Now imagine one million.

I’m sure you can’t.

One million might as well not exist.

To Sean, this is a very, _very_ small world. In it exists himself and his brother, locked indefinitely within a tiny zoo of a life with the whole world as their spectators. Everyone knew who they were these days, it seemed, and no amount of scrubbing of the skin could ever wash that away. Sean would forever be known as that boy from Seattle who killed a police officer. That _brown_ boy, from Seattle. Brown being important here. Or perhaps…the most important thing of all.

They wouldn’t remember his name. But oh, they would _definitely_ remember that he was Mexican. And they’d use that to fuel whatever hate-filled mantra against immigrants that they wanted. Not even daring to acknowledge the fact that Sean wasn’t even an immigrant at all. When all was said and done, everyone would go back to mowing their lawns and turning a blind eye to the discrimination tingling beneath their noses, and they would look the other way when their own police officers did the same thing again. And again. And again.

And they would think of that brown boy from Seattle who killed a police officer.

And they would do nothing to stop it from happening to the next brown boy.

So perhaps this should be written in capital letters.

BROWN boy.

Maybe…italics?

 _Brown_ boy.

Bold face?

 **Brown** boy.

Who he was as a person dwarfed in comparison to the elephant in the room of his life that was being Mexican. No one would ever see him as anything more or anything less than the Mexican who killed a cop. That brown boy from Seattle who ran away all that time ago.

Names would fade and details would blur between the lines of fact or fiction, but the color of his skin would live on as a caricature of himself, so inflated from who he really was, only to become a statistic, ridiculously politicized to fit whatever circus agenda someone decided to claim to prove their inane falsehoods about the dangers of the Southern Border.

Even if he managed to prove himself innocent, he could never wipe the red from his ledger. Never wash this mark from his history.

His dad was dead.

And he wasn’t coming back.

 

Sean hadn’t slept easy in days. Not since he’d starting feeling so alone. Daniel wasn’t speaking to him anymore, and Sean feared that this time, something must’ve really snapped in his brother. All because of him.

They’d fought so many times before, over the years. Petty squabbles at dinner, quarrels over toys or the TV remote, getting into tiffs about what-have-you and what-have-you-not. But the thing was…he’d never actually… _hurt_ Daniel, not like he had that day in the forest.

When he’d said that Daniel…that he… _ruins everything_ …what he didn’t want to think about, was that he’d really meant it. And he’d said it, on purpose, just to hurt his brother.

Daniel who gets everything. Daniel who’s the baby of the family. Daniel who can do whatever he wants and everybody still loves him. _Daniel._

And there had never been any part stronger within Sean than the brief moment where he'd wanted to say whatever he knew would destroy his little brother right then and there. And he didn’t think about the consequences. And he didn’t think about how much of a terrible brother he’d come across if he said it.

He wanted to say it.

And he hoped that it would hurt.

Because _he_ was hurting. And he wanted everyone else to feel that way too.

And now he slept alone in their tent. _His_ tent. And Daniel stayed with Finn, and didn’t talk to Sean anymore.

Of course, he was jealous. It was really hard not to be. Not when Finn was so super-cool and Sean was so super- _not_. Sean knew how much Daniel looked up to Finn, and it was difficult to separate the jealous Sean who felt that he was losing his brother to this stranger, from the love-struck Sean who similarly thought that Finn was the coolest person he'd ever met.

He just wished that Daniel thought that way of him, too, thought that he was awesome and talented and interesting. But he wasn't. He was just Sean. Sean who, until this point, had been kind of a shitty older brother, always fighting with Dan and never trying hard enough to see things from his perspective. 

One morning, about a week and a half after Sean had yelled at Daniel in the woods, Sean awoke to the smell of coffee coming in through the small opening of his tent, as it so usually did at this time of day. Though he'd only been without Daniel's company in their tent for a short while, it'd felt like weeks, months, even. Their time was precious, yet strange, these days, and every second dragged on like a hundred hours. 

He dressed himself and exited the tent to find Finn in the kitchen, alone. And by alone, he meant _without Daniel_ , specifically. Penny and Jacob were sitting nearby at the table in the kitchen, each nursing a cup of coffee and engaged in quiet conversation to themselves. The air was a bit warmer that morning than it had been in the past, and Sean could already tell with the way the sun came down through the trees above that this would be a long, hot day at work. 

It'd been so difficult to catch Finn by himself what with Daniel latching onto him at every waking moment, in what Sean knew for a fact was probably blatant punishment that he was meant to see happening. Daniel wanted Sean to see the two of them together and be jealous about it, and, it worked. Because he definitely was.

Sean entered their makeshift kitchen slowly, as if Finn was this elusive, legendary creature that he needn't spook off, and lingered off to the side for a moment, just watching. Finn had already made coffee, and was now buttering two pieces of bread from the toaster. Finn always liked his toast near-burnt, which was the exact opposite to Daniel, who barely liked his toast even a teensie bit toasted.

From beside him on the counter, Sean grabbed his usual coffee mug and poured a cup for himself. He wasn't totally in the mood for it, but it gave him comfort in the familiarity. 

“Finn,” Sean asked, stepping closer to his lover as they now both stood together. He thought about the feeling of warmth on the skin of his hand from touching the full coffee cup. “Is Daniel doing okay?”

“Hmm,” Finn snickered quietly, shaking his head in a bit of disregard over the question. “Define ‘okay’?”

Sean bumped his shoulder into Finn’s in response, saying, “I mean…is he, y’know, just… _you know_.”

Finn chuckled at Sean’s words, rolling his eyes dramatically to tease and said, “Mm, yes, he is ‘you know’.”

Sean, not in the mood to banter about this when it was really stressing him out, stirred some creamer into his coffee and then moved away from Finn to the end of the counter to make himself some toast, even though, with how worried he'd been, eating wasn't really on his mind much. 

Finn seemed to pick up on Sean’s cold-shoulder and dropped the act by saying, more seriously, “Sorry. Just kiddin’ around. He’s okay.”

Sean shook his head, feeling a momentary wash of wanting to cry come over him, but he tried to hold it back by swallowing thickly. He didn’t want to get too worked up about this right now, so early in the morning and right before work.

“You really hurt him,” Finn said, turning to lean his hip against the counter and crossing his arms. “With what you said the other day.”

“I know.” Sean sighed and put his hands down flat on the counter to brace himself. “I really fucked up.”

“S’long as you talk to him about how he is, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Finn suggested somewhat offhandedly, though he seemed to be holding back, Sean thought, like there were a thousand things he wanted to say but was trying to be courteous of Sean’s emotions.

“I’m not being a good enough role model for him.”

Finn tilted his head from side to side, as if considering this, and Sean didn’t appreciate the pause, despite knowing perfectly well himself that this was most definitely true. He couldn’t be good all the time, but his outbursts at Daniel were entirely uncalled for, despite being understandable. Just because something was understandable didn’t mean that it was the right thing to do.  

“Maybe not,” Finn finally admitted, “but, you’re doin’ the best you can with what little you have. My older brothers, they weren’t always the best, but they weren’t the worst, either. They were all I had, and I understand that now, looking back. Even if he’s upset now, he’ll always forgive you. I know it.”

“What should I say to him?”

“Well…he’s a kid, and at his age, he probably doesn’t wanna be a big burden on you and your life, so…just lettin’ him know that you respect his decisions as he gets older can go a long way. And that, even if he makes the wrong ones, you’ll always be there to help him through it.”

Sean sighed and crossed his arms. He wasn't mad. He was...disappointed. In himself.

“I just get so upset, sometimes…" he said, "because nobody is looking out for me. I have to be the parent all the time.”

“You know,” Finn said, taking a step closer and placing a hand softly on Sean's shoulder, “Daniel _is_ looking out for you, too, even if you don’t see it. Heck, he probably worries more than you do. Little dude’s gonna wear himself out with how anxious he is.”

Sean looked up with concern and asked, “How do you know that?”

“Please,” Finn said with a shake of his head. “He’s worried _all_ the time, about everything. Hmph, maybe you do need to pay him a little more attention.”

“He told you that?” Sean asked, but Finn shook his head to say no.

“He didn’t need to,” Finn said. “I’ve seen it myself. And, well, he _did_ tell me, too, but…the point is, he needs help. Not from me. Not from Cassidy. Not from anybody else. But you." He pointed into Sean's chest. "He needs _you_.”

“Did he say anything specific?” Sean asked, and Finn backed away to pick up his mug and plate from the counter. 

“He said he worries about what’ll happen if you die and he’s alone," Finn said. "And he said he’s worried you’ll get hurt, somehow. Or that you’ll get sick of him. Trust me, there’s a lot. I could make lists.”

Sean nodded and pressed his teeth into his bottom lip anxiously. He pulled his toast out at the sound of them popping up, and moved to put some jam on them.

“I’ve noticed that your accent comes out less when you’re being serious,” Sean said, changing the subject, and Finn gave him a funny look.

“Really?” he asked in humored disbelief, leaning up from where he’d had his elbows against his knees. “Ya’think?”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “Kind of like…like you’re not thinking about it as much, maybe. I dunno.”

Finn considered this for a moment in casual regard, and then said, “Yeah, I guess you’re probably right.”

Finn exited the kitchen then, as their conversation had reached a natural end that neither were trying to force to continue, and Sean followed closely behind. They headed out towards the lake, as they so often did, and made their way to the little sitting area of mismatched couches and chairs. 

“Can I ask you somethin’?” Finn said, taking a seat on the couch facing the water and pulling his legs up to himself. Sean nodded.

“Okay," Finn said, thumbing over his mug as something was noticeably on his mind. "I-I know you and Daniel have got better things to do than worry about what it is I’m dealin’ with. But-but…just…movin’ away from that for a second. I…” He sighed. “If I were a girl…would you have already told Daniel that we were together?”

“Finn, you know that’s not it –” Sean said quickly, taking a seat on the opposite side, but Finn shook his head sadly.

“Are you only afraid…because I’m me?" he asked. "Is that it?”

“No,” Sean said desperately, putting his mug and plate off to the side. “Never. I think I’m just afraid he’ll think I don’t care about him anymore. Like, in his mind, I’d be abandoning him for a different brother, a…a _better_ brother.”

“Sean…I know things’re…kinda… _shit_ , right now. And-and I totally understand that I’m not what matters most to you, in the slightest. I know I ask this all the time and I probably seem extremely insecure about it…because I am…I just…are you _sure_ that you really like me?”

“ _Finn_ ,” Sean said pointedly. “I _know_ that I like you. I like you so much it kinda scares me, and I just wish you could see it too. Wish you could see how much I really do…care about you. I just have a lot going on in my life right now."

“I’ve been hurt…before,” Finn said. “By guys that didn’t really feel the same way I did. Sex is the easy part. But feelings? Loving me as I am? Seems boys always get afraid.”

“Do you really think if I was just _experimenting_ ," Sean said, "I would’ve chosen some random guy who lived in the woods? I’ve seen you with poison ivy on your hands, helped you learn Spanish for weeks, seen you completely eat shit on the rope swing over the lake and get that huge bruise on your shoulder, seen you cry for an _hour_ when you cut your foot on that glass…Finn, if I wanted to leave by now, I would’ve already gone. And, besides…we haven’t even had sex. Not like, the kind you’d gold dig for.”

Finn smiled at that, finally, and Sean relaxed slightly. 

“If I was just bi-curious," he continued, "or whatever, I would’ve gone after some conventionally attractive dude. Not like…Shaggy, from _Scooby Doo_.”

"I guess you're right... _sweetheart_. Y'always are."

"Where does the 'sweetheart' come from, anyway?" Sean asked, relaxing back into the cushion of the couch again. 

"Mm." Finn paused and looked out over the water. "Maybe I'll tell you...someday."

 

That night, after what was a considerably miserable day at work, Sean stayed by himself at the lake, sitting down on a slightly scratchy-feeling picnic blanket and looking out at the water. With his legs hugged close to his body, he sat there, all alone, festering in his emotions. The night air sat still and silent all around, blanketing him in the illusion of time having stood completely still. The faint smell of campfire held itself nearby, wafting over from the camp where the others were roasting marshmallows and making s'mores before bed. He could hear the faint murmur of their chattering and laughter, but it felt so distant, so far away and untouchable. Like he didn't truly belong over there, with them. An outsider is what he'd always be in this place, someone standing on the outskirts barely able to imagine what it might be like to feel normal again. 

It wasn't until he heard soft, grassy footsteps approach from behind him that he was taken out of his trance.

“Sean…can I…talk to you?” they asked. 

He turned his head around with a slight jump at the sudden sound of someone there, and he saw that it was Daniel. He wondered if Finn had talked to him, had put him up to this. After almost two weeks of radio silence from his little brother, this was out of the blue. 

“Of course, Daniel. Always,” Sean replied, his voice breathy at the speaking of his brother’s name to that boy’s face after what felt like an eternity of separation.

Daniel came over cautiously to the blanket and knelt down on his knees in front of Sean, who turned so that they'd be facing one another. Daniel let out a small sigh and didn't speak for a moment, wringing his hands together in his lap as he looked down at nothing in particular. Daniel got lost for words pretty often when it came to important or difficult things, so this wasn't unusual behavior.

"I brought you a marshmallow."

Daniel held out his hand and showed that he did, in fact, have a fluffy little puff of sugar in his palm. Sean smiled without even realizing it, and he knew he had his Daniel back.

"Thank you," Sean said with an almost laugh of a happy tone in his voice. He accepted the peace-offering and said, "I'll...treasure it always."

“Why do you hate me?” Daniel asked as he dropped his hand back to his lap, and Sean's face fell. 

Daniel's voice had been barely a whisper, but Sean knew he'd heard every syllable perfectly as if they'd been screamed into his ears.

“What?” Sean’s heart broke. “I don’t hate you. God, Daniel…I’ve never hated you in my entire life.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“I know...” he said, looking down at the blanket underneath them. “I need to do better. I feel terrible that you feel like that, Daniel. And I’m so sorry.”

For a few seconds of silence, neither of them spoke again. And Sean wondered if maybe it was a fluke, and that Daniel wasn't really ready to forgive him yet. It was times like these when Sean truly remembered just how young his little brother actually was, and it hurt his heart like nothing else ever could. 

“Ugh, I give up,” Daniel said suddenly, and before Sean knew it, his brother had gotten up on his knees and lunged forward into his arms, immediately seeking shelter in his protector’s hold.

“What?” Sean asked, taken aback by the sudden hug attack, but definitely not complaining, with he himself seeking comfort in the embrace just as much. “What’s this for?”

“It was too hard not to talk to you,” Daniel mumbled into Sean’s shoulder. “I felt like I was gonna explode.”

Sean held the back of Daniel’s head in his hand, cradling him into his grasp, and said, “Hmph, that’s ‘cause you’re stubborn, enano. Just like me.”

Daniel pulled away to look at his brother, though not releasing his arms from the comfort of Sean’s touch, and asked quietly, “Are you mad that I didn’t talk to you for a couple days?”

“No, Daniel, never.” Sean held his hand up to Daniel’s cheek and cradled his face there reassuringly. “I kinda felt like I was gonna explode too. I missed talking to you so much.”

“You know, Sean?" Daniel went back in for another hug again, this time squeezing his brother even more tightly. "You’re like, my best friend in the whole wide world.”

“Am I?” Sean asked. “Well, if I’m yours, then…you’re mine, too.”

"I don't want you to be mad at me," he said, and Sean shook his head against Daniel.

"I'm never mad at you, okay?" he said. "Sometimes, life just gets really hard. And I don't know how to deal with it. But it is never, _ever_ , your fault. Okay? Never."

Daniel nodded and said, "Okay."

Sean stayed like that for as long as Daniel needed, rocking the two of them together and cooing soft words of care to his brother, who needed them now more than anything. With how Daniel was, waiting until the younger boy came to him with how he was feeling might not have been the best decision, but, what mattered was that he was here with him now. Right where he belonged.

“Sean?" Daniel pulled away and rubbed his eyes, from both tiredness and tears. "I’ve been thinking…about what you said about leaving, with Finn.”

“Yeah?” Sean asked patiently. 

“I think…I think I’d really like that," he said. "Soon, if…if we could. It’s okay living here, but I miss having a real bed, and a real bathroom.”

"That can definitely be done, enano, okay?" Sean reassured. "We’ll try to go as soon as we can. I’ll talk to Finn, and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Thank you, Sean.” He snuggled himself back into Sean’s side to get comfortable, relaxing more than he had at the start of the conversation. “Thank you for being my brother. You make me feel safe.”

They stayed there for a while with Sean sitting and Daniel cradled into his protection, both of them looking up at the night sky with its millions of uncountable bright lights. The sounds over at camp became quieter as some of the others must've retired to bed. 

“Sean?” Daniel asked. “What is God like?”

“Well…hm…how do you mean?” Sean asked, readjusting his position with his brother to hold him more comfortably. He remained still looking up at the stars. “Like is he a nice person?”

“Hm…not exactly,” Daniel said, but he didn’t seem so sure. “Like…what is God? Is _He_ even a real thing?”

Sean brushed over Daniel’s hair with his hand to keep calming him down, absentmindedly pulling on the strands lightly as they stayed there together.

“Maybe…” he said slowly, “God is like…the color of the air, or water…just, everywhere, all at once, always in a little bit of all of us, in some way. Even if it’s by a different name, there must be some kind of magic all around us.”

“But, do you really believe that, Sean?” Daniel asked quietly, and Sean’s heart broke at the innocence of it. He didn’t want to lie. He promised his brother that he’d never lie to him again.

“Do you want me to be honest?” he asked carefully, and he felt Daniel nod against his side.

"Yes.”

“Then…I guess I don’t. Not really.”

“What about dad?” Daniel asked softly. “Do you believe that dad is in Heaven?”

“I hope so.”

“But you don’t believe?”

“I guess not,” Sean said simply, and surprisingly, Daniel didn’t seem to react badly. He really was growing up, and must’ve just been glad that Sean was being honest with him.

“When I die…” Daniel asked, thumbing at the bottom of his shirt where it was getting tattered, “will I go to Heaven?”

Sean took a moment to think. Not about whether or not this was true or false, but about what was better to say here. To someone who was only ten years old.

“Are you worried that you won’t?” Sean asked curiously, and Daniel shrugged vaguely.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot about it, lately,” he admitted, rubbing his upper left arm with his right. “About what'll happen…after I’m gone.”

“After you’re gone?” Sean asked, throwing the line back at his brother with a questioning woe. He reached a hand out and placed it gently overtop Daniel’s, but the younger boy slipped his own away from Sean’s touch. Sean frowned with eyes laden of sadness. “You’re not goin’ anywhere just yet, enano. I won’t let you.”

“But you won’t always be there to protect me,” Daniel said, his voice cracking in a whimper. He dropped his eyes from Sean’s, hiding his tears from his brother and wrapping his arms around himself.

“How would you know that if it hasn’t happened yet?” Sean asked, and Daniel shook his head, still not looking up.

“Mom left,” Daniel said, making Sean cringe outwardly. “And then Dad. And Grandma and Grandpa. And Chris. Everybody’s gone. Nobody stays.”

“It wasn’t up to Grandma and Grandpa to stay – ”

“Then why didn’t they try harder to keep us safe?” Daniel asked. “I didn’t want to leave again, Sean. I was happy there, with them.”

“Daniel…I know it may be hard to understand…but I don’t have all the answers. And I don’t know why life sucks. But it does. Life is full of so much pain and unhappiness…but believing-”

“I’m sorry that I’m me.”

Sean blanched white at Daniel’s words. He wanted to burst into tears right there, but he thought doing that would only worsen the situation. He didn’t want to scare Daniel away, not when he’d finally gotten him back again where they could talk.

“What?” he asked, and Daniel remained looking at the ground. Sean tried to tilt his head to get a look at his brother’s crestfallen face behind the hair that hung in front of it, but Daniel just looked away and crossed his arms over his chest for protection and comfort.

“I’m sorry that I am who I am,” he said miserably. “And that I’m the reason for everything bad that’s happened. If I wasn’t here, everything would be okay.”

“Daniel,” Sean said, putting his hands lightly onto the sides of his brother’s shoulders. “There is nowhere you can go that I won’t follow.”

“But all I do is hurt people,” Daniel said, seemingly trying to come up with some reason that would convince Sean that he was bad. “And ruin things.”

“Even if that were true,” Sean said with a shake of his head, “I’d drag my bare hands across a thousand broken bottles to make sure you came back to me.”

“What if you hated me?” he asked, and Sean squeezed Daniel’s shoulders even tighter into his grasp, digging his fingers into his brother’s skin as if to transmit feelings of love and safety to this scared boy in front of him.

His little brother finally met his eyes, and they shined with the light of the world that Sean never wanted to see go unlit.

“Especially then,” he said. “ _Especially then_.”

“Say you’ll never leave me.” Daniel pushed his face deeply, frantically into Sean’s chest, hiding there like he never wanted to come out again. “Because I need you so much.”

“I promise I’ll never leave you, okay?” Sean said. “I promise.”

“Don’t ever go, Sean. I can’t do this on my own.”

If Sean knew how to talk words that would say how he really felt, he would never have to speak again. Because all that he would need to say would have been said. But he cannot do that. And so he will continue to scream into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from the _Bring Me the Horizon_ song of the same name.


	12. Take Me To Church

For once in so very long…maybe things could be okay.

Well, okay might’ve been an overstatement, but, things were, for once, not so terrible as they used to be, and thus, Sean thought that ‘okay’ was a pretty good way to describe the road their life had turned onto recently.

He and Daniel had a better understanding of one another now, and he was starting to see more clearly that what his little brother really wanted, above all else, was to be respected as he grew into a maturing young man. He may have only been ten, but after everything they’d gone through, Daniel had loads of excess experience under his belt, and though he may not always act like it, he was wiser than his few years could count.

Nothing in their lives had or ever would be perfect, that much was true, and Sean knew it. But so long as things were steadily moving forward, and Daniel was being kept at bay, then their time together was manageable enough, though it absolutely tested his patience each and every day.

One morning, near the beginning of April, it was just around five-thirty, with both Sean and Daniel having woken a bit before their usual time, each of them having gone to bed earlier the night prior.

Spring was slowly pushing its way into becoming summer, especially in this Californian weather, and the time the sun rose was growing earlier and earlier each day. The smell in the air brought with it instant promises of rebirth and change, and the sounds of the changing season’s leaves in the wind were a welcome ambiance.

Sean and Daniel each lay back in the tent, neither of them talking much but feeling entirely comfortable to stay in silence together. Sean had been trying much harder lately to take his brother’s feelings and emotions into consideration, and for the first time in a while, they hadn’t fought. Things felt _good_ , for once, and he could barely believe it. They were both excited at the idea of going somewhere new again, and Sean secretly promised to himself that once they were out of here, he’d buy something that Daniel really wanted and surprise him with it. He deserved it, after all the shit they’d gone through. If he could replace Daniel’s _PlayBox_ , he would, but they both knew perfectly well that electronics weren’t a realistic choice for them right now.

“Sean?” Daniel asked, taking Sean out of his daydreams. The younger boy peeked his head out from inside his blanket where he was snuggled for warmth and comfort.

“Yeah?” Sean asked tiredly, feeling his throat a little dry from sleep. He rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers.

“Um,” Daniel said, dragging out the syllable. “What does it feel like…to be loved?”

“What?” Sean asked, a slight smile growing on his lips that he tried to hold back. He rolled onto his side to get a better look at his brother, hand propped beneath his head. “Hey, _I_ love you. Is that not enough?”

Daniel opened his mouth to defend himself and backtrack what he’d said, but Sean continued speaking first.

“Ohhh,” he said teasingly, though he already knew what Daniel had really meant. “You mean like _love_ love…mhm.”

Daniel retracted into his blankets at the suggestion and Sean rolled his eyes playfully.

“What makes you think I would know?” Sean asked with a smirk, but Daniel seemed confused at the question, like he had expected Sean to have these sorts of answers by default.

“Doesn’t Finn love you?” Daniel asked curiously, lolling his head to the side a bit, and Sean felt a wave of anxiety befall him.

He sat there in shock for a moment, before uttering a tactless, “What?”

“Finn,” Daniel said again, not sugarcoating or tiptoeing around this conversation. “Doesn’t he love you?”

“Why…what…why would you think that Finn loves me?” Sean asked, and Daniel scoffed quietly in a childlike way of a kid mimicking an adult because he knew that that’s what adults did.

“I’m not stupid, Sean,” Daniel said matter-of-factly, as he so often did. “I see you guys all the time.”

“What…what do you _think_ is going on?” Sean pressed, and Daniel almost smiled at this, knowing he’d caught Sean red-handed.

“I don’t ‘think’ anything,” Daniel said. “You’re together. I _know_ that. You’re not sneaky.”

“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?” Sean asked confusedly. He couldn’t believe his ears; though these days, maybe he shouldn’t really be finding himself surprised by anything anymore.

“I don’t know,” Daniel shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be upset I knew.”

“And are you…okay…with that?”

Daniel shrugged again. “I guess so,” he said.

“Guess so?” Sean repeated with concerned question. He’d never expected this conversation, which he’d run panic scenarios for repeatedly in his head, to come to the forefront in such a sudden, unceremonious way. But there it was.

“I just wish I could spend more time with you, and Finn…” Daniel said sadly. “But you’re always together, alone. I feel like you don’t want me around.”

“That’s not true, Daniel,” Sean said firmly. “And you know it.”

“Do I?” Daniel pushed, and Sean didn’t appreciate his tone, even if he knew that Daniel was right.

“You’re right,” Sean conceded, reaching up to run his hand along the back of his neck regretfully. “I haven’t been the best at letting you know how much I care. And I’m sorry.”

Daniel nodded with pursed lips, and then gave an honest, “Okay...I accept your apology.”

Sean let himself relax a bit after this, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad that it had come out this way, and that he hadn’t had to tell Daniel himself, point-blank. Daniel definitely was proving that he knew a lot more than Sean gave him credit for. There were whole worlds inside his brother that he never knew anything about, and while he may have been young, he wasn’t blind, or oblivious, to the world that existed outside of himself. Sean knew that Daniel would grow up eventually, and he’d have to take a step back and allow that to happen, even if it meant drifting apart.

“So, you like boys?” Daniel asked, pulling Sean from his temporary pondering. Sean nodded with a small smile.

“I do,” he said plainly. “And girls.”

“Which one do you like more?” Daniel asked curiously, as if Sean had his sexuality worked down to an exact science, with numbers and charts and precise statistics.

“It’s definitely pretty even,” he said, nodding at his own answer while he thought about it. “But, what matters right now is that I like Finn. A lot. He’s very important to me. Just like you are, okay?”

Daniel nodded too and then pulled an inquisitive face, like he was thinking very hard and very deep about something he wasn’t sharing quite yet. He looked away from Sean’s eyes for a moment as he focused elsewhere on the tarped walls of the tent.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Sean asked calmly, and Daniel looked back up at him.

“I think…I do too,” Daniel said slowly. “Like boys, I mean. Maybe. I’m not sure. It’s confusing.”

“That’s okay,” Sean said with a reassuring smile, reaching over to softly place a hand on his brother’s shoulder atop the blanket. “It _is_ confusing.”

Daniel nodded and looked away from Sean, probably seeking an end to the awkwardness that was talking about his feelings. But Sean wasn’t ready to let him off the hook just yet.

“So,” Sean teased, “is there somebody you like?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a secret.”

“Why is it a secret?” Sean asked. “You know I’m with Finn, so why can’t I know who _you_ like?”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” Daniel said in a defeated voice, putting the palms of his hands over his eyes to hide what he saw as something shameful, most likely. Sean didn’t like seeing him this way, and wondered why, no matter how many times he reassured Daniel that he could tell him anything, the boy still was unable to put his trust fully forward into his older brother.

“I don’t think it is,” Sean said. “I promise that, whoever it is…I won’t judge you for it.”

“Okay…” Daniel resigned, snuggling further down into his sleeping bag to hide himself from what he probably assumed would be scrutiny from Sean. “I kind of…like…um…Penny is pretty cool.”

“Really?” Sean was taken aback. “That’s…huh…I didn’t expect that.”

“You think it’s stupid,” Daniel said depressingly, already making a move to roll over so that Sean couldn’t see him anymore in his embarrassment.

Sean caught onto this and quickly said, “No! No, that’s not it. I was just surprised. I wouldn’t have guessed. Penny…is a great guy. That’s really sweet.”

Daniel’s face grew redder than it already was and he pulled his blanket up over his face so Sean couldn’t see. Daniel had never talked about a crush with him before, not unless he counted Lyla – which he didn’t. Sean was actually pretty excited to have something new to talk about that wasn’t so doom and gloom, like most of their conversations these days were.

“I…kind of thought you might like Finn, actually,” Sean admitted honestly, and Daniel made a face.

“Finn?” he said incredulously. “He’s like a brother, and, I dunno…I guess I didn’t really think about it.” He paused. “Okay, maybe I did…but…he’s with you, so it didn’t feel right. Finn is super great, but not for me.”

“So…what do you like about Penny?” Sean asked, glad that Daniel was being open with him about this, knowing how personal the subject matter was. He never would’ve thought he’d be talking about boy crushes with his younger brother some day, but, well, there they were.

“He’s always really nice to me, and he likes to have fun. He listens to me when I want to talk about stuff, and he doesn’t make me feel like I’m just a little kid. He reminds me of Lyla, sometimes, treats me like we’re friends but not…getting into trouble, like Finn does. I’d never met anybody who was gay before Penny, and, did you know he has a boyfriend? It's really cool. Or, well…he did. But…he’s gone now.”

“Did you know that Penny’s real name was Dean?” Sean asked casually, not knowing he was saying something so apparently unbelievable to his brother.

“Wait, really?” Daniel asked. “I didn’t know that. Did you just make that up?”

“No, Penny is just a nickname. I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, no," he said. "But, that’s okay. I like the name Penny. And, I think he does too.”

“You’re right," Sean agreed. "I don’t think Penny wants to be Dean anymore, so, Penny it is.”

“I also," Daniel continued, "like the way he looks…like how tall he is, because he’s so much taller than I am, and he’s way better at giving piggyback rides than you are, Sean. And…I like how he dresses, it’s really nice and…unique. And his tattoos are super cool too, and he has _so_ many of them, way more than Finn even. Oh, and his hair is really cool, the way that he dyed it. Where it’s blonde on top but not on the sides. Oh! And his nose piercing.”

“Geez…apparently he has it all,” Sean said teasingly, but when he saw the sudden worried look on Daniel’s face, he added, “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know…” Daniel said, but Sean wondered if he really _did_ know, but just wasn’t sharing. “I’m just confused about how I feel, I guess.”

“Which part is confusing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Boys are supposed to think that girls are fun, and that they look nice. Are you sure it’s okay for me to think that way about a boy?”

“Hey, _yes,"_ Sean said. "Yes, it is absolutely okay.”

Daniel picked and twisted at a string on his sleeping bad, and asked, “What would…dad think?”

Sean swallowed, not sure how to answer.

“I think that…he’d want you to be happy," he said, "and that, no matter what, he’d just be glad that you found somebody that you cared about.”

“What if he hated it?” 

“He would never hate it, Daniel,” Sean said, somewhat to himself and to Daniel at the same time. He needed reassuring too. “Dad wasn’t like that.”

To be honest? He wasn’t so sure, though. But it was too late to know now. Their dad had never been a hateful man, but he was still traditional in a lot of ways, and Sean’s fears that his sexuality wouldn’t be accepted weighed heavily on his mind every so often.

“How would _you_ know?” Daniel asked bitingly. “Did you ever tell dad you liked boys?”

“No…” Sean said regretfully, though now with everything that’d come to pass, he wished he had taken the chance when he’d had it. “But…I just know. And let’s leave it at that.”

Daniel conceded with an empty, “Okay…”

Sean rolled back over onto his back to get comfortable again, their conversation ending on their dad having suddenly put him in a bit of a sad mood. He tried his best not to think of their dad too often, because doing so usually always ended up ruining his whole day. 

“When am I allowed to date?” Daniel asked, and Sean let out a humored scoff with a shake of his head.

“Mm…maybe when you’re a hundred,” he said, but Daniel didn’t want to hear this.

“Hey!” Daniel called out. “That’s no fair, Sean. You’re sixteen and you get to date.”

“That’s because I’m the older brother and what I say, goes. Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Psh, whatever,” Daniel said. “I don’t even need to ask for your permission anyway.”

“Oh?” Sean quirked his brow doubtfully. “Is that so?”

“Yeah!” Daniel said. “Maybe I’m secretly dating somebody right now and you don’t even know it.”

“Power Bear doesn’t count.”

“Ugh, _Sean-_ ”

“And just because you have a crush on our dear friend, Penny, doesn’t mean you’re dating.”

“Ugh…I know that,” Daniel pouted, crossing his arms over his chest and pointedly looking up at the top of the tent to show that he meant business by not looking at Sean's face while he was talking to him. “I was just kidding. I just wish I had somebody like you have Finn.”

“You will one day, okay?" Sean said kindly. "I know you will. You’re really awesome, and anybody would be really lucky to get to know you.”

“Thanks, Sean,” Daniel said with a shy smile, immediately releasing the tension from a moment ago. “I hope so too.”

“Just…don’t date for a while, alright? You’re only ten, so, you have a long time to find someone. For now, you’ve got me by your side, and Finn. We’re here to protect you, okay?”

“Okayyy,” Daniel said. “I know.”

“I don’t ever want you to get hurt. You have so much life left to live, and you’ve got time. Trust me.”

“Being your age seems like it’ll take _forever_.”

“It’ll go faster than you think, enano. Don’t rush it.”

“You know..." Daniel said, "I kind of miss being at school.”

“Honestly?” Sean said. “I kinda do too. Guess we never realized how good we had it, huh?”

“I miss seeing all my friends every day,” Daniel said sadly. “Like Noah. And I miss learning. I thought I didn’t, but now, I feel like I’ll never be smart now.”

“But you’re so smart, Daniel.”

“No, I’m not. I get mixed up on letters and numbers all the time. I can barely even read at my grade level. Now that there’s no school…I’ll always be in the fourth grade.”

“I can help you, if you want,” Sean offered. “Finn has lots of books. Maybe we can read together at night, how about that?”

Daniel scooted closer to his brother to give him a hug, and Sean reciprocated. 

"Thank you, Sean," he said. "I'd like that a lot."

Was it selfish of Sean to keep Daniel on the run like this? He shuttered imperceptibly at Daniel’s words, at his reminder that Sean was preventing him from getting the help he needed as a young boy, what with school and a steady home life. Being on the run did Daniel no favors aside from staying by his brother’s side…but was it really worth it?

As the weeks dragged on, Sean was sure they had enough money to jump ship any day now. He’d been stockpiling it ever since they’d arrived back those few months priot, and he hoped that with just a couple more pay days, they’d be well on their way out the door. Combining his and Finn’s money should give them somewhere over six or seven thousand; enough to get them hopefully anywhere but here. And Sean was more grateful than ever to have that dreadlocked boy by his side through thick and thin.

They didn’t really have much of a plan, though, and Sean wondered how well _The Three Stooges_ that were himself, Daniel, and Finn could plan a mad dash out of Humboldt and into another part of the country without getting caught by the police. He’d considered the ramifications of continuing south, but he wasn’t sure anymore what he’d gain by going there. Puerto Lobos would always be there, but that didn’t mean he was welcome, or that anybody would be waiting on the other side.

None of them had told the others about their plan, because Sean wasn’t ready to face the wrath of Cassidy when she (rightfully) gave them an earful about how fucking stupid it would be to toe the line and add a third person to their group; especially when that person was Mr. Idiot himself, Finnegan McNamara. She’d probably ask them how far they think they’d get in their clown car before they got gunned down by the FBI for grand theft auto and kidnapping.

Finn suggested every so often that they should lay low and try to cross the border into Canada, which was considerably less armed and dangerous, and at some places only guarded by a barbed-wire fence or a row of flower pots. But Sean felt uneasy about that, probably because he didn’t know anyone who lived in Canada, and he was afraid what that uncertainty might bring to his life. Moving to a country where he had no known family and would have to start over completely from scratch. The only thing keeping him going to Puerto Lobos was the miniscule possibility that his dad’s family was down there…but that, was the greatest unknown of all.

During work one Thursday night, things had been going slower than normal, with Daniel working alongside Finn and Cassidy inside the greenhouse, potting plants and sorting seeds, and Sean outside trimming trees with Pennywise, Hannah, and Jacob. Some new odd drifters had started at the farm a few weeks prior, replacing Anders and Ingrid, but they weren’t too close to his own little gang.

There was surprising cloud cover that day, and Sean didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see some of those fluffy white things in the sky in his whole entire life. He felt like he’d gotten enough Vitamin D to satisfy him for the rest of eternity on his stay on the farm…well…enough of the sun kind of Vitamin D. _Not the other kind._

While he was carrying his canteen at his side and heading down a short path into the woods to get to the freshwater well, he heard somebody coming up behind him at a soft jog. He stopped and turned around.

“Sean, hey…” It was Jacob, slowing once he’d gotten closer. “Do you think I could have a minute?”

“Oh, sure, Jacob,” Sean said, stopping walking so that Jake could catch up as he approached from behind. “Though I’ve gotta say, I’m kinda surprised. We never really talk much. This is kinda…random.”

“I know,” Jacob admitted timidly, rubbing his left elbow with his right hand self-consciously. “I know I keep to myself…most of the time.”

"That’s okay,” Sean said in an effort to be reassuring and seem non-threatening, and Jacob eased up ever so slightly. Sean reached his right hand up to his forehead to wipe sweat from his brow.

“So,” Sean said with a friendly smile, “what’s up?”

“I heard you guys are leaving.”

Sean’s face fell. Not in upset, but in surprise. That was pretty straightforward, he thought. He wondered if Finn had told Jake this, though it was more likely that Daniel had spilled the beans.

“Oh, yeah…” he said, trying to quickly recompose himself after having been caught off guard. It wasn’t that it was a secret, but it wasn’t information he thought he wanted to share. “I just thought…maybe it was time to pack on up. It’s probably not good for us to stay in one place for too long. Might risk getting caught.”

Jacob nodded, but Sean could tell that there was a lot more on the other boy’s mind than just small talk and banter about future plans. Sean twisted his empty canteen around in his hand and looked up at the trees around them, giving Jake a chance to organize his thoughts.

“C-can I come with you?” he blurted out, and Sean was taken aback. That, he _really_ hadn’t expected.

“Come with us?” he asked. “Really? Why? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, we’d love to have you along…but…what brought it up?”

Jacob looked bashfully down at the ground and had difficulty meeting his eyes to Sean’s. Sean hoped he wasn’t _that_ intimidating.

“I’ve been…thinking a lot…lately,” he said. “About Daniel’s…about…you know, his… _powers,_ ” Jake whispered that word like it might slip away if he spoke it too loudly. “And, I just feel like it’s a sign.”

“What kind of sign?” Sean asked suspiciously, though he already knew perfectly well just what kind of ‘sign’ Jacob was referring to.

“Just…” He paused to recollect himself. “I think Daniel and you were meant to be here. And, I was meant to be here at the same time. So I could meet you guys.”

“Gee, Jacob…I don’t really…I, uh-”

“Have you ever read the Bible, Sean?” Jacob asked, and Sean felt a bit sheepish. Even if he wasn’t the religious sort, he did want to have the Bible under his belt for the sake of conversation and information.

“Erm…some of it,” he said with slight avoidance. “Not…that much.”

“In the Book of Daniel,” Jacob said, and Sean mentally threw up in his mouth at the sound of his brother’s name in that context, “t-there’s this one quote, and it says, _‘But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries…’,_ and I just can’t help but feel that this was all meant to be. That you two being here was exactly what I needed.”

“I’m not following,” Sean admitted, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He didn’t need to be preached at right now, and while he was always a respectful person, he didn’t have time these days to pay lip service to the possibility of a higher being. If there really was someone out there controlling all of this, why hadn’t they stopped it from happening? Sean felt a bit like he was being cornered by a Jehovah’s Witness on his doorstep right now.

“I have a place where we all can go,” Jacob said seriously. “Where we can be safe.”

Sean’s interest was piqued, though he might’ve denied it if pressed. He wasn’t interested in being preached at…but…somewhere safe? He knew exactly what Jacob meant, but what he didn’t know was why the thought of going with Jacob to a church imbued in him a sudden sense of _security_. A kind that he wasn’t sure he’d felt in a very long time.

“I’ve been struggling, Sean,” Jacob said timidly, “with so much. And my life has been… _far_ from perfect, something I-I know you understand, too.” He rubbed the palms of his hands on the front of his jeans absentmindedly, probably nervous with sweat. “It’s a scary world, out there. But I know this is the right thing to do.”

“If you’re suggesting we go back to your church with you…” Sean said it like he didn’t already know perfectly well that that was _exactly_ what Jacob was saying. “I don’t know if that’s-”

“My family is there, Sean…my little sister.” Jacob wrung his hands in front of him sadly, or maybe nervously. Sean wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t have brought this up if I didn’t think it was right.”

Sean sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest in uncertainty.

"How do you know we’ll be safe?” he asked, and he saw the Adam’s Apple of Jacob’s neck bobble in a heavy swallow.

“Well…” he said, “everybody’s very private…there. And nobody really talks much to people on the outside. I know this is sudden, and I know we’ve never really had much in common, but, I want to do this for you guys. For Daniel. He has a gift, an amazing gift…and I couldn’t stay quiet about it anymore.”

“What about the others?”

“I know they wouldn’t want to come. Cassidy, Penny, Hannah…they don’t care much for my religion. And-and I respect that, but, I don’t think they’d understand anyway. Penny especially… _wouldn’t like it there_. But Finn’s… _Finn_ , and I know he’ll go wherever you go, so, that’s why I’m asking you first.”

“Jacob…” Sean paused for a brief moment in-between, seeing how hopeful Jake’s face looked, and he didn’t want to be the one to crush that. “You’re asking a lot of me right now.” Sean shook his head with arms still crossed, looking down at the ground beneath his feet where he pushed some dirt around with his shoe.

“I’m only asking you…to take a chance on faith.”

Sean sighed and looked up at the trees above their heads, not sure what he wanted to hear or what he wanted to believe.

He knew that Jacob must’ve sensed his incredulous reaction, so the other boy added, “The point of believing isn’t that it’s real or not, Sean, but that you believe _despite_ not being able to prove it. And that’s all I ask. That you give this a chance. For Daniel. I would never have mentioned it if I wasn’t concerned about you guys.”

“Concerned?" Sean repeated. "He’s just a little kid. There’s nothing…nothing divine…about…”

“ _Sean_ ," Jacob implored. "Please. I know this isn’t conventional, and I know it may be weird, _and_ I know I left. But I have never met anyone like Daniel, before. And this is crazy. So much so that I feel like I can barely sleep at night because of what he’s capable of, of these powers. It’s incredible.”

“Say that we go.” Sean rested his hands tiredly on his waist. It had been a very long few weeks, and he didn’t know where his patience laid itself. “What then?”

“O-our Reverend…her name is Lisbeth.” Jacob took a moment to breath in and out through his nose. “I know she’d be so happy to have you guys there. She loves it when new people join in, and I know that she’d see Daniel as a little miracle, or something.” He swallowed nervously. “That might be good for him, putting his powers to use, maybe in helping people.”

Sean let his eyes run off to the sides, behind Jacob’s head, above it, below it. He’d never noticed just how young Jake looked beneath his beard, and he found himself wondering how old the other boy actually was. Definitely couldn’t be out of his early twenties, Sean decided, but he wasn’t sure if he was a teenager or not.

“I know that it’s probably not what you guys want,” Jacob said, and Sean’s eyes landed back on him. “But I know in my heart it could be great for you." He hung his head again. "I lost my faith…but the two of you gave me hope for the first time in months that maybe I _should_ go back, that maybe I _did_ belong there.” He paused and his eyes wandered regretfully. “I’ve been so lost without my family, a-and the church…and I think maybe it’s time I go back home to where I’ve always belonged. They did so many good things for me, things I couldn’t see were good at the time, but now I can.”

One thing was certain. Jacob believed what he was saying. Even if he was wrong, or even if this was the worst possible decision they could ever make…Sean was almost undeniably sure that Jacob _really_ thought that this could be good for them. And something Sean lacked so greatly these days was certainty.

He hoped that this wouldn’t end them.

“And you know…they’ll accept us there?” Sean asked worriedly, and Jacob nodded as if he had never been surer of anything in his entire life. Sean didn’t know whether this was a comfort to him or not, as so often, intense belief in one singular path could easily become blind obligation.

“Without a doubt.”

_And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever._

_(Daniel 12:3)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Hozier's song of the same name.


	13. I Want To Be A Kid Again

They left camp three days later, on Sunday, of all days; that self-proclaimed Holy Day, in all its hushed cognomen and silent vows, with twenty-four hours of pseudo, fragmentary divinity that Sean hoped might bless him with some undeserved kind of miracle. It rained, and that water fell down sloppily onto everyone’s heads like a child had sat in the clouds of Heaven above them, lifted a heavy jug of rainwater to pour into a glass, and spilled it in an infant’s fumble down through the sky to crash-land onto earth.

When it was time to go, well...the others just knew. 

Sean had expected the worst to come from his little found family there; a found family who had come to care for him and Daniel like their own blood. Sean worried they might ream him out for taking yet another risky chance with their lives and safety. Leaving behind this secret place among the redwood trees in Humboldt County would be them darting out from the shadows and into the streetlights of the law, especially with Finn at their side, someone notorious for attracting danger like a moth to a flame, or, “Like shit to a toilet,” as Cassidy had said.

But none of that happened. And when it came to the moment when Sean, Daniel, Finn, and Jacob would leave the camp and go on their way, those they were leaving behind didn’t try to stop them. And suddenly, Sean came to realize all at once that every person really did live for themselves alone, with their own choices and decisions, good and bad. Nobody was going to hold his hand and tell him when to go, and when not to walk away. Nobody was going to keep their shoe on his throat or their fingers on his pulse…because his doing and his undoing were all of his own accord.

He couldn’t make them beg him to stay, but it took leaving to realize that what he actually wanted was for someone to ask him not to go, because he hadn’t felt like he belonged anywhere in months, not since they’d left home. And deep down, he hoped that one of his new friends, no…his new _family_ …might find it in their heart to break down and make him stay.

He had an infinite number of reasons to go anywhere but there…but he only needed one to keep him there. 

Those reasons to leave, all of them came together as colors of paint across a canvas in creation of the perfect picture of what his life could be…but he only needed one rainy day, one bad reason, to wash those paints away and convince him that leaving was the wrong choice.

When he packed what little he had in his shared tent with Daniel, he was reminded of all his life had amounted to. That everything that they were as people could fit into just a few little bags. Never in his life had he felt the meaninglessness of material items as he did then. 

He had nothing, _nothing_ , to his name…and yet, there he was. Still Sean Diaz. Still wanted. Still on the run. But from what? He used to run to not be caught. And running from something meant there would be no end. Because the end would only come when the thing chasing him gave up. But now he runs so that maybe he can find his own end. And escape the monsters chasing him. And somewhere inside, he hopes that he can be in control of his own ending. That maybe there was still a way to live. 

“I’m gonna miss you, asshole,” Cassidy had mumbled into the fabric of Sean’s jacket as they hugged goodbye near the edge of the woods where the others had walked with them to a close bus-stop. “Won’t be the same without you.”

She pulled away, though Sean could feel her regret in the way her hands lingered on his shoulders, her eyes tethering to his as they became two cliffs never to touch but forever to exist parallel to one another.

“I’m sorry, Cassidy,” he said, though he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t know what else to say, so he could only muster a lame apology that he knew would never be enough. “I wish we had more time.”

“Don’t say that, Sean Diaz.” Her shaking head fell to look down at the ground beneath their feet. “Don’t you ever say that.” She pursed her lips together tightly. “We’ll get that time back. Don’t you worry. We’ll get it right back.”

She pulled him towards her again, her unsteady breathing held closely to his ear where he could hear her trembling sniffles. “What happened to you and your brother, Sean…I can never tell you how much you didn’t deserve it. God, Sean… _god_ , I’m so sorry. Please don’t die, Sean. I don’t want you to die.”

He wanted to hold onto her and say with all the truth in his heart, _“I won’t die, Cassidy.”_ But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Because he knew that was a promise he couldn’t keep. And he didn’t know whether or not he’d make it out of all this with his life.

She moved away from him to grab a something nearby, and with both hands, she held up a large black case in front of him, its surface, smooth but scratched with age, was covered in stickers over stickers that’d weathered to show the tells of time.

“Your guitar?” he asked, stepping back automatically in surprise and giving her a shocked look.

“I can always get a new one, but you-” She pointed at his chest, right into where his heart would be. “I won’t never find another one-a you.”

"I can't take your guitar," he said, motioning with his hands that this was a gift he just could not accept.

"Well," she said, setting it down onto the ground. "If you don't take it, it's stayin' right here to get old and dirty. So you might as well."

He stood unmoving for a moment, and she tilted her head towards the case, hands pressed against her waist, and he knelt to retrieve it. 

"I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything. Just take it and think of me when you play it."

Daniel ran up behind Cassidy then from camp, having used the restroom one last time before they had to get on the bus. He threw his arms around her and crushed himself harshly into her embrace, to which she wrapped her own arms around him, and said, "I'm gonna miss you most of all, Daniel."

"I wish you could come with us," Daniel muffled out into her shirt.

"Aww," she said, "Y'all don't need me holdin' ya back out there on the road."

Daniel reluctantly let go after a long minute of extreme hugging, and then moved to hug the others goodbye, lingering perhaps a bit too long with his arms around Penny's waist, and Sean smiled at the secret only he knew. 

"I'll miss you, little man," Penny said, and ruffled the top of Daniel's hair. 

"It won't be the same without you guys," Hannah said, and though she was too proud to admit it, Sean could tell how badly she wanted to cry, just like Cassidy. 

Finn said his own goodbyes, and Sean wondered how this must be for him, having known these people for a significantly longer time than he or Daniel had. And it made him realize just how much Finn was giving up to be with him, that he was willing to walk away from perhaps the only group of friends he had to his name just to follow Sean wherever he went. 

Jacob was a bit less-so, more subdued and not as touchy-feely than they themselves had been. It didn't seem that Jacob had ever really made a substantial connection with any of them there at the camp, and it made Sean curious about that quiet boy's inner workings. What he thought about, how he felt about them, who he liked and didn't like. He'd never met someone so nervously private before, like everything about him was a secret just waiting to be spilled. 

Before they all walked away to get on the bus that had been waiting for them nearby, a hand grabbed Sean's shoulder and spun him back around quickly.

“If he dies…” Cassidy said to him, and let out a long hush of breath, releasing tension in her whole body. She bit her bottom lip forcefully and looked away with a shake of her head. “Just don’ let that happen. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

"I promise," Sean said with a weak smile, barely consolation at all for what she'd just asked of him. 

“Y'all look me up once you get to Puerto Lobos,” Cassidy said with bluntly meaningful force, shaking off her previous grief and masking it behind a momentary face of waving goodbye, as if Sean were only going on vacation. But Sean saw her wipe away those tears. And he knew this wasn’t a going on vacation. And he knew that there would be no looking her up. Because Cassidy was a drifter. A ghost. Somebody you could only find if you happened to end up at the same train station of fate.

And Sean knew that this was goodbye. Forever.

And when they got on that bus and drove away from that fated place, those people that he had come to know and love there would wash away and in effect be lost to him for the rest of his life. They were a bloody spot on his trail that would only cause him be caught in the end, and it would be impossible to step in the same river twice.

Cassidy…Hannah…Penny. All of them blips in his memory that he would one day think back on like it had happened to somebody else. Somebody he didn’t recognize in himself any longer. And future Sean would wonder what happened to those drifters in the woods. But he would never know.

They boarded the bus like they were the last four to board Noah’s Ark, their saving grace before the storm. Their ship that would guide them to paradise. And when those doors closed, and they sat in their paired seats facing one another, Daniel and Finn stood up to catch a final glimpse out the window at the others still outside who were waving goodbye, to hold onto those very last moments they might ever see one another.

But Sean didn’t. Sean sat in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze fixated on the bus carpet. He began the process of saying goodbye. First step? Accept that it was over. And let them go. 

“I wish we didn’t have to say goodbye,” Daniel whispered into his side once he'd re-seated himself as the bus began to pull away. He held onto Sean tighter than he ever had before. Sean brushed his hand over Daniel’s hair tenderly, and for the first time, he felt honored that this pure person looked to him for comfort when times were tough. That this pure heart poured into his world to find a place to hide from the things it didn’t want to see, the things it couldn’t bear.

“It’s not goodbye,” Sean said, needing to hear those words himself. He thumbed over Daniel’s forehead to keep his hair from his eyes. “Not really. It’s just goodnight. Because goodbye is forever, but goodnight is only ‘til the morning. And we’ll see them again.”

“Just hold onto me,” Sean said, “and nothing will ever hurt.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

* * * * *

Sean knew next to nothing about Jacob.

He knew that Jake – as he preferred to be called – was a bit older than them, though was unsure by how much. Despite this, though, he didn’t act older. In fact, he came across as quite young, naïve, timid… giving off the impression that his mental growth had stunted somewhere around the age of thirteen or fourteen. Sean also knew that Jake liked to be by himself most times, and this often led to the boy intentionally isolating himself from the others in favor of spending his time off all alone. This made Sean sad for him, but there was little he could offer in the way of comfort. He knew so few things about Jacob Hackerman that he found getting to know him to be like pulling threads from a blanket with his teeth.

He also knew that Jacob cried at night. Just like he did. But he pretended he didn’t know this about him. Sean supposed it was better that way. It wasn’t his place to confront Jake about things that didn’t have anything to do with him. And so he stayed silent.

To get to Haven Point, they'd gotten bus tickets for both that day and the next, the first taking them from Humboldt Country to Reno, Nevada, then stopping for a seven-hour layover in the city before their next bus left out from the Greyhound stop in the morning. 

The drive from Humboldt to Reno would've taken a bit over six hours, if time and traffic were allied generously on their side. But that never happened on American interstates, and the lengthy road-trip routes to any destination always tacked on a couple extra hours in between. 

A few hours past the California coast to the east, their bus found itself in a neverending line of traffic headed along CA-299 E, and they halted to a near complete stop. The bus moved along at a snail's pace down the road, stopping and starting every few seconds as they inched as slowly as heavenly possible. 

There were only so many times one could play rock, paper, scissors before they considered rock, paper, and scissoring themself in the head to be put out of their misery, and Sean was pretty close after nearly an hour stuck in traffic having to entertain Daniel. 

Daniel giggled to himself, "Sean, look at that sticker on that car. It says a bad word."

"I see it, Daniel," Sean said, though with eyes closed in attempted sleep, no, he did not really see it. 

"Oh, Sean, do you see that tree over there? It reminds me of the tree that was in front of my school. You remember the one?"

"Mhm..."

"You remember that time you got all those splinters in your knee when we were climbing it?"

"Mhmm...yep..."

"Oh, Sean, do you see that cloud up there?"

"Oh, yep, I see it, Daniel. Pretty cool."

"Can we play iSpy again?" Daniel asked, and Sean shook his head. 

"What about the quiet game, huh? That sounds like so much fun."

"Nu-uh," Daniel said. "iSpy. I'll start. I spy..."

"You know what iSpy is called in German, Daniel?" Finn asked, cutting Daniel off, and Sean was thankful for the distraction put up by his boyfriend slash little-brother annoyance savior. Daniel shook his head no, and Finn said, "It's called, 'Ich seh, ich seh.' So say, 'Ich seh, ich seh.'"

Daniel parroted, "Ich seh, ich seh."

"Okay," Finn said, leaning his forearms on his knees. "Now say, 'was du nicht siehst.'"

"Wuh..." Daniel sounded it out, making an O with his mouth, and Sean smiled out of the corner of his lips as he watched. "Wah...was du...nicht siehst."

"Okay, okay," Finn said, "now say it all together. Say, 'Ich seh, ich seh, was du nicht siehst.'"

"What does it mean?" Daniel asked curiously, ignoring repeating it again. 

"Just say it," Finn said, rubbing tiredness from his eyes into the palms of his hands as he leaned back in his seat. "Then I'll tell you."

"Can you say it again?" Daniel asked. "I forgot."

"Ich seh, ich seh," Finn said, "was du nicht siehst."

"Okay...ich seh, ich seh...was...was du nicht...siehst. What's it mean?"

Finn yawned and stretched, then said, "It means, 'I see, I see, what you don't see.'"

"Ooooo..." Daniel said. "That's so cool. That's so much better than iSpy. It's funner to say ich seh, ich seh. Ich seh, ich seh." He tried it on for size at least a dozen times quietly to himself as he looked out the window, distracted by whatever else he must've been thinking about.

"Great," Sean said, leaning over to whisper to Finn, "we'll never live that one down now. He'll say it over and over again until we both keel over."

"Hey," Finn said, "I just saved you the sufferin' of actually havin' to play another round, so there you go. He's distracted."

"Oh, my hero," Sean said sarcastically, bumping shoulders with Finn and almost moving to lay his head on Finn's shoulder when he saw Jacob staring at them from across the seat and abstained from doing so, instead looking out the window himself.

"Maybe a manure truck crashed and there's shit all over the road," Finn said, poking Sean's right leg secretly between them with his knuckles.

"Maybe a huge giant fell asleep in the road and we can't get around him," Sean suggested, crossing his arms over his chest and snuggling into his seat to try and sleep more. 

"Oh!" Daniel said. "Like Snorlax, in Pokémon."

"Yep," Sean mumbled. "Just...like...him."

After hours of waiting, it was the few moments of time standing still that came at the end that felt like the longest time of all.

When they finally reached the point of slow-down at the start of the traffic jam, there, in the left lane, facing towards them, were the remnants of what Sean thought could be a small pickup truck, its front entirely smashed in as if destroyed by the hand of God itself, nearly marking the vehicle indecipherable from a pile of trashed metal and rubber in a junkyard. It was all red, the color…and Sean thought about that red color of the truck’s paint, now chipped and ripped and sliced to pieces, and he tried not to think about the red color of the blood of the people inside that truck. But he did anyway.

Sean stared at that heap of disastrous horror where it lay on the road, once living, now deceased; a fragmentary piece of life now missing where it once stood, that Sean both wanted and didn’t want to see. He wished only to squeeze his eyes shut and pretend that hadn’t happened. And in five seconds, it would be all gone. It would all be gone and he could ignore it…but he couldn’t. He couldn’t just close his eyes, because to close his eyes would be to look away in the face of Death confronted to him in its flesh and bone and blood and tar. And he needed to look that face right in its eyes, and tell it that he wasn’t scared to look at its destruction.

He turned his attention fastly around to the road, all at once trying to find where it had come from, a fleeting detective in those few seconds, piecing the clues together and solving the puzzle. The opposite-direction interstate road - headed west while they were headed east - which ran parallel to them about thirty feet away, was struck across its surface by the dark black lines of tires having run on them too quickly…and those lines, those lines…they turned off the edge of the road in a sudden jerk…crossed the median of grass between the two roads…and collided, crashed, head-on, with a tracker-trailer coming from the opposite direction.

The semi was fine.

When they passed by on their Greyhound bus in those seconds that felt like hours, that felt like days, that felt like…that felt like… _seconds_. Seconds. And then gone. Gone forever, in that window of time where their lives ran perpendicular over the lives of the people in that red truck, and then once again uncrossed and disappeared from existence to each other, possibly never to reunite again.  

Across from him, Daniel – having begged Finn to trade seats about an hour prior – his eyes were trained to that scene of red truck and death before them. He, at ten, did not know the social paus of faking disinterest in the face of terrible tragedy, terrible tragedy that people were meant to pretend they didn’t see, because that tragedy was meant to be personal, not shared with the public through prying eyes; a final courtesy in the last moments of life.

And so Daniel stared at that truck with his right hand splayed across the window, where the heat of his palm collided with the air-conditioned cool of the glass and created steam around his fingers. His little hand, opened towards the smashed truck against the veil that was the bus window, the only barrier separating the _Us_ and _Them_ …served inadvertently as a hand waving goodbye to those people now dead, being as what might have been the very last time that those now deceased in the red truck were ever acknowledged in their existence by a stranger.  

When they’d passed, Daniel sunk into his seat once again, lower this time, though, than he had been before; a mere few inches lower of his spine slowly crumbling inside him, the only betraying sign of the hit of depression that scene had surely caused him. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked out across the aisle to the opposite window.  

Sean watched his own hands in his lap where they lay quiet, not speaking of any of his own emotions. They were lifeless, listless, lo little lilting. A stray, pale hand which was not one of these two of his own slowly approached from his right side, snaking into his lap like a car merging into the left lane, and landed just atop his. That familiar _N_ inside the circle tattooed across the skin of Finn’s right hand greeted Sean like a painting hanging inside a home which one might see and feel comforted by every time they walked in the front door.

He didn’t look at that other boy and that other boy perhaps didn’t look at him as well, but there they remained in desperate silence, heavy with the edges of tears in their eyes…and he moved to squeeze Finn’s hand, so much so that he might never let go, because that hand, that comfort, was all he had in that moment. And there was no soothing the futile hopelessness of death that could not be stopped.

Nobody spoke, because there were not words to say about any of what they’d just seen. It was a helpless feeling; seeing a car accident and knowing the people inside didn’t survive. And those thoughts, they come…it could’ve been me…it could’ve been _me_. God…who decided who would die? If there was yet a God who solved mysteries, then who committed the crime?

Sean begged silently for answers that would not be delivered upon him by perhaps a God that was not watching, that was not there. Cry for the tells of safety, relief from a heavenly fire, a miracle from suffering yet to come...but he knew that that help was not up there, was not anywhere. Because they were alone. Maybe forever. 

* * * * *

Skies were nearly dark when their ride finally ended, dropping them at a station a short walk from a mom-and-pop motel down the road. The days were getting longer as they crept through the endings of spring, sliding closer to the summer which would bring with it the solstice of lengthening sunlight hours.

They walked the half-mile down the road to the motel, aptly named MOTEL, in neon lights, though the L wasn't lit anymore, so it only said MOTE. There were four cars out front, all of them spaced out inside the parking lot of that U-shaped two-story building. They rented a room with two beds for one night, paid cash, and accepted the key from the old woman at the front desk, who was aged like she might've worked there from birth to death and didn't seem to care at all about the fact that three suspicious teenagers had just approached with a little boy. 

Inside their room was exactly the sort of average motel decorum one might expect. Always the same no matter where it was. Smelled like formaldehyde and air conditioner. Two bland, brown-comforted queen beds were separated by only enough leg-room to subsist and with a single wooden end table and lamp between them that looked like it came from grandma's post-mortem estate auction. There was a small bathroom in the back - Sean knew it was small without looking because motel bathrooms are never big - a television set positioned opposite the beds, and an old office chair with a desk pushed up against the doorside window, which was overlaid by the usual slitted plastic curtains that many motels had. 

It would’ve been a generically modest layout if Sean had any semblance of his former suburban privilege left inside, but he didn’t. And this was a palace to his former forest home.

Onto the bed nearest the bathroom, Daniel flopped in a twist to land carelessly on his back, spread out like a dead man on the cross, then rolled to one side and leaned his head on a bent arm with his palm pressed to his face. “Can we order food?”

“Only if you take a bath,” Sean said, earning an eye roll from the bath-boy in question.

“Can’t I wait a little _longer?”_ Daniel flung his leg into the air and hooked his free elbow beneath his knee. “We just got here.”

The clock on the wall that Sean then referred read back 7:54 P.M. to him, so he sighed defeatedly, and relented. “Alright. We can eat first, but you better have your butt in that tub at least by 9, okay? Then bed by 10. Our bus leaves at 5, so we’ve gotta be up early.”

“Bed by 10?” Daniel repeated incredulously with a widened mouth. He spread back out defiantly across the whole bed, his arms and legs not long enough to reach each corner quite yet. “But they’ve got a TV. And I haven’t seen TV in like, _forever."_

“Okay, 11…is 11 okay?”

Daniel made a face like he was fishing for a little bit more, his mouth turning in consideration from side to side, mushing against his cheeks in dramatic thought.

“Okay, 11:30. Is 11:30 enough?”

Daniel sat up and chippered a quick, “Yup!” and then popped off the bed with a spring and ran over to the old wooden-style television set opposite the bed. It zipped to life with a static prick when Daniel pushed the button on its front, and he plopped down in front of it on the carpet of the motel, one leg stretched out beside him and the other now up on the side of the console as he picked at a stray toenail.

The TV murmured stale jokes from some late-night sitcom that Sean had never heard of, though somehow was comforted by with its familiarity to every other sitcom. Probably just another show about a group of friends in the nineties living in New York City apartments that they’d never actually be able to afford. He felt at home for a twinge of a second, like they were a family again, like they were on vacation and heading somewhere exciting and new in the morning, that they’d wake up and smell cheap motel coffee and their dad would be…would be…

“Ugh…there’s only like six channels that work.” Daniel pressed the buttons on the remote repeatedly as it cycled through many stations of static, two late-night talk shows, the sitcom he was on to begin with, a sports channel, and two home-shopping networks. He relented his agony at having no access, presumably, to _Hawt Dawg Man_ , and ended back on the sitcom again. He put the remote down next to him on the floor and then stood up, retrieved a pillow from the bed, then returned to the floor in front of the TV, now with that pillow beneath his chest as he lay down on his stomach.

Jacob, nearly a mute the entire time they’d been on this trip, piped up in a quieted, “Is it alright if I take a shower?”

Sean turned his head to the left where Jacob was standing quite pathetically near the bed closest to the door, and said encouragingly, “Of course. Yeah, that sounds like something we all need, huh?”

Jacob just nodded, leaving that rhetorical banter unanswered, then crossed the room quickly to head into the bathroom, the door closing behind him like the period on a sentence, ending the conversation that barely was.

“Once Jacob is out,” Sean said sternly, turning to his little brother and pointing an accusatory finger at him. “You’re next. You smell like shit."

“Point one finger at me, there’s three pointing back at you,” Daniel rambled off quickly, his own hand shooting up like a gun at Sean to mimic the action. He spoke like he’d just read that on the back of a bubblegum wrapper and regurgitated it at Sean like it was law. 

“Okay, _beds_. Who’s where and where’s who?” Finn asked, stepping between them with his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room, as if there was much to survey at all.

“I don’t wanna share a bed with Sean,” Daniel said as he rolled around on the floor at their feet. “He has stinky feet.”

“Oh yeah?” Sean asked with a teasing roll of his eyes. “Well, get this…tonight, when you’re sleeping, I’m gonna roll over onto your side of the bed, lean in _real_ close, and fart in your face.”

“ _No_! Eww! Sean!”

Sean moved towards Daniel like he was coming in for an attack, and Daniel promptly jumped up from the floor and crashed onto the bed. He rolled over and around to dodge Sean’s faux tickle assault, and lay for a moment on his stomach, probably overcome by the sudden realization that he was very tired and this bed was very comfy. Though any bed at that time would’ve felt like a cloud. He rested his chin on crossed arms and looked up at the wall behind the bed.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to an old metal box near the headboard.

Sean made a questioning noise and, himself also on the bed, shuffled on his knees over to the box in question to investigate.

It was retro-looking and rusted, slightly dented from wear over the years and about eleven inches tall and six inches across. In little worded engravings into the metal, it read, _‘Magic Fingers Relaxation Service. 25 cents for fifteen minutes.’_

Sean covered his mouth to subdue a laugh and took a second to compose himself. Daniel came up behind him, placed an elbow roughly onto his older brother’s shoulder, jabbing him in the neck, and read over him.

“Eh…it’s nothing,” Sean said with a quiet snicker and pushed his brother off. “Go back to watching TV.”

Daniel backed away from him, now with eyes wide open inquisitively, riddled with scandal. “Is it a…is it a _sex_ thing?” he whispered, hands cupped beside his lips, as if whispering that word would absolve him of punishment at its mention from his childish mouth.

“ _No_ ,” Sean said quickly. “No…well …actually, I don’t know.” He turned behind him to see Finn reading a pamphlet about the National Automobile Museum in Reno that he’d picked up at the bus station. “Finn,” he said, and the other boy looked up. “Is it a…sex thing?”

Finn gave Sean a humored look in question and lowered the pamphlet for a second. “ _Magic Fingers_?” he said, letting out a short soft laugh. “Damn, I haven’t seen one a’ those in ages. I mean, sounds fuckin’ kinky. But, no, I don’t think it is.”

“What’s kinky mean?” Daniel asked, and Sean sucked his emerging smile into a faux stern pucker of his lips. He smacked them out.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he said, and Daniel rolled his eyes, sinking back into his laying position on his stomach.

“Ugh…” he said, hiding his face in his arms. “You’re such a butthead, Sean.”

“We _could_ turn it on.” Finn bumped his shoulder into Sean’s and wagged his eyebrows. Sean just pushed back against him and rolled his eyes.

“Wait, Sean, can we?” Daniel turned over fast and crawled across the bed to his brother. “Do you have a quarter?”

Sean chewed his bottom lip in questioning half-seriousness, of the ridiculous, ‘Am I really going to let my ten-year-old brother turn on this vibrating bed?’ variety, and then said, “No, no. I don’t think…I dunno…”

He turned to look back at the still-running TV and then to the bathroom door where the shower could be heard pattering water faintly through the walls, and the image came to mind of little devout Jacob returning innocently from his shower to find that one sixteen-year-old and one eighteen-year-old who were supposed to be the adults in this situation had let Daniel turn on the vibrating bed. But when Sean looked back to his brother, Daniel was already wobbly scampering away from him across the mattress back to the box with a quarter that Finn, standing with a shit-eating grin beside Sean, had given him.

“What?” Finn said un-guiltily with a shrug, though the joking smirk of his eyes betrayed his faux seriousness. “It’s not sexual. It’s fine. Keep Daniel busy for fifteen minutes and it only costs 25 cents? That’s a steal right there if I ever did see one.”

With a clank of metal on metal, Daniel slipped the quarter into the accepting slot and then assumed the position of a dead man on the cross again from corner to corner of the bed, as if bracing himself for a shaking of earthquake proportions.

The bed hummed to life very unceremoniously and rumbled lightly, probably barely working anymore these days, beneath the sheets.

“Happy now?” Sean asked with his hands on his waist. The slightest formation of a migraine was pecking at his left temple like a very angry bird attached to his face, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“WoOoOoOoO…tHis iS rEaLyYyYy FuUuUuUuUuUnNnNnNn…”

“Uh-huh…well…don’t have too much fun,” Sean said tiredly and sighed in defeat, sinking down at the end of the bed to face the TV, his back relaxing at the feeling of the vibrations coming off the bed behind him, and Finn joined at his side on the floor. 

It’d been months since Sean had even seen a TV, let alone watched one. And this old box set with its dialed buttons and antennae, from what was probably the seventies, was comforting to him in its reminder of things that had passed, of time that had gone by but didn’t disappear from memory. A memento of the past and an assurance that life once lived didn’t have to go anywhere unless people decided so. This old device was outdated, but still remained, and the passage of the years felt not so long, and Sean shrunk again to the child he used to be, in a motel with his family, with a father that would walk into the room any second and return everything to the way it once was.

He didn’t care what he watched on that screen, because all that mattered for that time in that motel room was that he was watching something, _anything_ , that would be loud enough in his ears to cover up his thoughts that were screaming about missing their old life again. He would’ve settled to watch even the most horrific stories from the E.R. show that he absolutely abhorred if only it could scrape from his brain the images of his dead father coming back to life from the grave, resurrecting from desiccated death in all its maggoty decay, and returning to his rightful place as head of household in their two-story home in Seattle, Washington.

The red color of the chipped paint of that truck, the red color of blood...he saw, today, the color of life that was also the reminder of life ending. To see blood is to see something outside of where it belonged, this water of life that was never meant to be looked at. And he thought of that crushed truck, and he thought of the car his dad had been fixing up for him back in October. And he wondered if his dad would've painted it red. And he imagined the color of this car that was almost his being painted with the same blood red that seemed to spill from that truck they'd passed. 

Red was such an angry color. Such an emotional color. Perhaps the most emotional of all. Looking at it, into it, maybe it would always call thoughts of his dead father to the front of his mind, over and over again, for the rest of his life. It swallowed him like the womb he once resided, and he wished he could be blind to it, because maybe it was the very worst color of all. 

"I'm gonna order pizza," Finn said suddenly, as if he'd somehow sensed that Sean was mentally in a place he shouldn't step any closer to and needed to be pulled away. 

He jumped up from his carpet spot and grabbed the landline from the little table in-between the two beds, fished inside the drawer for a catalogue of local numbers, then fell onto the second bed that Daniel wasn't on.

In the waiting time for the pizza, Sean fell asleep with his head pressed back against that vibrating bed, and he felt like he might never feel as strangely relaxed as he did in that moment. Sleeping on purpose was hard those days, so when it caught him by surprise, he was grateful for it. 

He felt a bit like he wasn't there anymore, like he'd floated up, up, and away to the ceiling, where his soul was stuck in limbo above him like smoke trying to escape that dingy little room. 

He ate a little when the pizza came, but wasn't much hungry as he thought he should be. He only wanted to sleep, sleep, sleep...and hopefully wake up eight months ago back at home to find that this had all been a terrible, horrible dream, and that he could forget any of it ever happened. 

After a short while, from the bathroom emerged a characteristically quiet Jacob, silent as the ghost of a mouse passing from this world to the next, where he crossed the carpet in front of where Sean and Finn sat and placed his dirty clothing into his suitcase.

Sean sat up on his knees and turned around to Daniel where he was nearly asleep atop the bed. “You’re next, buddy,” he said with a put-on of parental sternness, though he found he was too tired to really mean it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel said, rubbing his eyes and hopping off the bed in the middle of his third - Finn had supplied two more quarters - tiny earthquake session and grabbing something clean to wear for after he was washed. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“When you come outta that bathroom, you better be _spotless_ , Mister. Okay? _Spotless_. If I see even one dirty fingernail…” Sean held up one finger very seriously to show he meant business. “You’re…you’re gonna get it.”

“Gonna get what?” Daniel said in a mocking _‘I know you are but what am I?’_ tone of voice, sticking out his tongue and squinting his eyes teasingly.

Sean made a fake sudden rush for Daniel where he stood and the younger boy squealed in surprise and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. The mechanism of the lock clicked.

"There's pizza here, Jake," Sean said tiredly from where he then returned to sit in front of the TV, but then added passively, to sound not too forceful, "Just, if you want any."

"Oh, thank you." Jacob stood awkwardly still for a moment near the door and then added, “Hey, I, um…” He wrung his hands like a scheming rat, though Sean knew he was just being the usual Jake. “I’m gonna go down to the vending machine that was in the lobby and get something to drink. Do you guys want anything?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Finn put his hands behind his head and cracked his neck. “Actually, can you get me a Pepsi?”

Sean looked at the clock on the wall and scoffed, “Soda at almost 9:30? How about some water?”

“Aww, does somebody care about my health?” Finn bumped into Sean’s side and Sean looked away, avoiding reacting to the flirt with watchful eyes on them in the room.

Jacob only nodded quickly at the two of them and exited the room. If it were anybody else acting like him, Sean might be put-off, but, Jacob was Jacob. C'est la vie.

Sean yawned and leaned his head back against the bed behind him. “How d’you wanna sleep tonight?”

Finn straightened up and turned to peer over the beds for a moment and then lowered back to his previous slumped state. “The bed’s pretty big. I’m sure the three of us can fit and we can leave Jake alone on the other one. Daniel’s tiny anyway.” He held up a little space between his thumb and pointer. “He takes up like, the space of a stuffed animal or whatever. Barely a twig.”

Sean opened one eye to look at Finn and then closed it, making a noise from his throat and saying, “Believe me, Daniel’s like three elephants sleeping in a sock when he’s in bed. He may be four-foot-eight, but he doesn’t act like it.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Finn said with a brush off of his hand. “We can, like, be a threesome over here, and then Jacob can have his own bed. Easy-peasy.”

“A threesome?” Sean repeated with a humored choke. “Dude, fucking gross. That’s my little brother.”

“Oh, _shit_ , that’s not what I meant. Oh my god, that’s…rewind.” Finn made a sound like a VHS being rewound and made the motion of rolling backwards with his pointer fingers. “Take it back. Freudian slip. _Sorry_.”

“I’m just gonna un-hear that,” Sean said with a laugh. 

Finn stood and then sat down on the bed and the springs of the mattress protested with wails of crushed agony beneath him. He pulled his left leg up onto the bed with him and held his hands over his calf.

“How much d’you know about this, uh…church?” he asked, picking at the hairs on his leg. “Of Jacob’s.”

“Not much,” Sean admitted, taking a look at the door automatically as he knew that was where Jacob would return through when he came back. “I know they’re Christian. I think they might be…Pentecostal? I’m not really sure, though.”

“Y’know, I’m not sure how well I’ll fit in there.”

Sean gave a sad face, though Finn wasn’t looking his way, then stood to join at Finn’s side on the bed, sinking down nearby, just close enough for their knees to touch.

“Jacob said they like meeting new people,” Sean offered, but now he wasn’t looking at Finn’s face anymore. He never looked at people’s faces when he wasn’t certain about what he was saying. “They’re supposed to be all…new age, or something. He hasn’t really said much.”

“My tattoos won’t be…sacrilegious?” Finn asked with a joking smile, but Sean just shrugged seriously. “No sacrílego?”

“If they are…” Sean said, his head tilted to the side in consideration, which made his long-grown hair fall across his forehead in waves, “Jacob hasn’t said so. So, maybe not?”

Finn picked up a beaded dread on each side of his own head and asked, “What about my hair?”

“We can always shave it,” Sean suggested with a shrug and Finn’s mouth dropped open in feigned disbelief at what he was hearing.

“Not over my dead body, Sean Diaz,” he said, shaking his head. “Not even over my cremated remains blowin’ in the wind. Nobody touches the dreads.”

“If they’re really as religious as I think they’re gonna be…well, it’s probably gonna be sayonara on that front.” Sean picked at his own hair in consideration, which had itself grown into the beginnings of a messy wild-child do. “Probably have to cut mine too. Sucks.”

“You’d look hot with one of those choir-boy God Save Me crew-cuts. I’d just look like a fuckin’ skinhead if I shaved mine.”

Sean laughed and buried his face down in Finn’s shoulder, leaning into him in tired comfort, the two of them rocking slightly back and forth in a lulling motion. Finn made a grab for Sean’s hand and held it between them, fingers laced together, a merging of the pale white of Finn’s knuckles to the sun-tanned skin of Sean’s. He used his right hand to cradle Sean’s head into his shoulder.

“I wish we were alone,” Sean said quietly, and Finn nodded his head against him. “Wish we could just… _be_.”

“Mhm…” Finn said, running his right hand from Sean’s head and down his back. “And what exactly is this that you wish we could just _be_?”

"I don't know," Sean said, "what are you thinking about?"

"Mm...if only you knew," Finn said, but when his left hand rang too close to Sean's zipper, Sean shuttered and pushed him off like a cat avoiding being touched and pulled away, giving Finn a suspicious once-over.

“Dude, this isn’t the time,” he said.

“Sorry,” Finn said sheepishly, looking down at the flowered bedspread and gripping the fabric in both hands. “I’m bad at being sentimental sometimes, just, feels like it’s always gotta be about-”

The bathroom door bounded open, popping in a silent scream off of one of those circular rubber wall protectors put there by the hotel to prevent exactly that rambunctious young child named Daniel from slamming it open into the wall and disturbing other guests.

In his arms were a bunched-up ball of wet towel and dirty clothes, which he carelessly deposited onto the end of their bed. He was wearing one of Finn’s shirts that hung like a dress on him, its arms going past his elbows and its bottom reaching his childishly scraped knees.

"Daniel, you were in there for like, five minutes. There's no way you're clean." Sean sighed heavily and flopped back to a laying position on the bed and closed his eyes. Finn scooted slightly away from him. 

“How would you feel about a haircut, Danny-boy?” Finn asked, kicking the previous mood out and sitting upright on the edge of the bed, playfully kicking Daniel’s ankle with his foot.

“Why?” Daniel took a step back and reached up protectively to his black locks. “You guys aren’t gonna cut my hair in my sleep, are you? Please don’t, Sean.”

“What?” Sean scoffed. “Why’d you automatically accuse me?”

“Because that seems like something that you’d do…”

Though it was only a joke, Sean felt a hint of hurting in Daniel’s un-trust in his older brother turned guardian. “Aw, Daniel, I wouldn’t. I promise. Joke aside, I wouldn’t do that. We were only asking because we might have to cut our hair where we’re going. It seems like it might be a pretty…tight ship…over there. Y’know, very proper.”

The door to the room opened then and Jacob returned from his great venture to the great vending machine beyond, an assortment of cold bottles in his arms, which he distributed to each of them. 

"I got these for Daniel, too," he said, and held out three _Chock-O-Crisp_ bars, to which their intended ran over and grabbed them up excitedly. 

"NO WAY!" Daniel said, and then jumped up onto the bed, tearing open the wrapping. 

“If you eat that all tonight, you’ll have a stomachache again,” Sean said, “like last time.”

“Sure, sure.” Daniel brushed him off with a wave of one hand, the other busy already shoving the chocolate into his mouth, which muffled his voice as he said, “Whateffer yoo shay, Sean.”

He hopped rabbity around on the bed, those poor mattress springs suffering more abuse at the hands of Daniel’s stomping feet atop them.

“Thiff pfeels like a shleepofer!” Daniel mumbled out, a _Chock-O-Crisp_ in each hand. He hadn’t had one in nearly two weeks so he probably felt like it’d been at least two billion years.

“Don’t jump,” Sean said, reaching out to grab Daniel’s ankle. “You’ll make yourself throw up.”

“I won’t throw up,” Daniel said, swallowing his mouthful of chocolate and wiping his face on his forearm. “I haven’t thrown up in like three years. Not since I was…since I was…seven! Yeah, it was that time I ate the Spaghetti-O’s and chocolate milk. You remember?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, still jumping through Sean’s ankle-hold. “So I don’t think it could be any worse than that.”

“Well, let’s not find out then, yeah?”

Later that night, Daniel was stretched out like a cat in the bed, cradling a pillow and taking up all the room by being positioned smack dab in the middle. Sean emerged from the bathroom after his own shower and clicked the television off, eliciting an offended, "Hey!" from his brother. "I was watching that."

"No more. Too tired. Bedtime," was all Sean could muster as he lazily put away his dirty clothes and moved to crawl beneath the covers and push Daniel to the edge of the bed, Finn joining him soon after. Jacob lay alone in the opposite bed, still saying nothing. Sean wondered if he might disappear entirely without them noticing at all. 

"Hey." Finn bumped his right leg into Sean’s left beneath the covers, and that touch was such an intricate ritual of planet against planet, of secret skin on skin touch that was private yet world-changing, and Sean felt he might both burst into tears or get an inappropriately timed hard-on in the bed.

“Goodnight,” Finn said, and Sean breathed out a harsh hold of air he’d been keeping in. Goodnight! Goodnight! That was all? That was all Finn was going to say after nearly suggesting what Sean thought he was suggesting earlier, and yet now just leaving Sean there, torn between crying his eyes out about the inevitability of their deaths one day and also shirking social graces entirely and diving his hand beneath the covers to rendezvous in secret south of the border. Unbelievable. Unbelievable!

“Yeah…goodnight,” Sean said in a lame retort. Finn didn’t seem ever the wiser to his inner suffering as he only smiled a little goofy one and reached to click the light off beside the bed. Oh, woe was he.

It was quiet, then, but the vibrations from the air conditioner buzzed a low hum all across the room that kept Sean from going completely insane, for which he was thankful. 

There may have been only a good fifteen minutes of quiet before there was sound again, sound from Sean's left. He looked to see movement from Finn. 

Finn put his elbow up to his face and made a loud farting noise into his arm, and then said, “Oh, shit, _Daniel_ , wuzzat you?”

“No!” Daniel piped up from the other side of the bed through the dark in a giddy squeal. “I didn’t do it!”

“No way,” Finn teased. “I think it was definitely you.”

“If it was me, it would’ve sounded more like this,” Daniel said, and a high-pitched fart ripped out across the room and Finn burst out laughing.

"Okay, okay," Finn said. "Truce."

It didn't take long for Finn to fall asleep. He was just one of those people. Those people who sleep came easy no matter how much life sucked. And their head hit the pillow and that was that. 

But for himself, Sean wondered if sleep even really existed anymore. On nights like those, when he got to thinking a little too hard about when he would go, and where he would be once he was asleep, he became anxious to get to that desired falling. And it felt impossible. Inside his own head wondering if he’d catch himself in that exact moment when sleep came. And yet, he had of course done so hundreds of times before in the sixteen years of his life, but it seemed so far away on these sleepless nights. As if he’d suddenly become truly awake, forever, and forfeited his ability to blissfully slip into an unconscious dream by being too aware of it.

He thought of himself laying there for all of eternity as the clock stopped moving, and he was all at once jealous of anyone in the world who was similarly laying down to sleep and had already fallen. Curse those people for whom sleep was easy, he thought, but what a childish thought it was as it danced tauntingly inside his sleepless mind's eye. 

“Sean?” A little mouse of a whisper crawled into Sean’s ear from his right side, so small it almost could’ve gone unnoticed.

Sean didn’t open his eyes, but managed a simple but dry, “Hm?” from his tired throat, in response. 

Scratchy motel blankets shuffled together like sandpaper with all the prickles of static cling across their surface, and the mattress shifted lightly beside him. Sean could feel breathing on the side of his face now, and he squinted open his eyes to see Daniel about five inches from him, staring and waiting quietly for a response.

“What’s up?” Sean whispered, turning onto his own side to face his brother, presuming this conversation was to be kept between the two of them alone, not that there was much privacy in a room with four people. Shoving his right hand beneath the cool underside of the pillow and his left beneath his cheek, he re-situated in this new position.

The room was sharp with the faux freeze of the air conditioner, Daniel’s breath a warm contrast as the boy unconsciously breathed right into Sean’s face. “Could we talk about that car accident we saw today?” he asked.

Sean was glad for the room being dark; Daniel didn’t need to see his face, his face that wore the remnants of his own secret tears for that accident they had seen. Those tears that ran along the rims of his eyes and threatened to fall at their slightest push over the edge.

“Do you think those people are dead?”

Blood felt hot beneath the surface of Sean’s skin, and he was rife with white burning inside…his breath all but a hindered expression of the built-up anxiety inside of him.

“Please don’t lie to me…” Daniel pleaded, his right hand reaching out to poke at the side of Sean’s left resting beneath his cheek. “I don’t want you to protect me. I want to know.”

“No.” Sean swallowed. His stomach ached in a phantom pain. Was it real or imaginary? He wanted to throw up. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. “No…I don’t…I don’t think those people made it.”

Daniel turned again onto his back and placed his hands neatly together in a careful clasp over his chest. He stared at the ceiling, though Sean could only just barely make out the darkened silhouette of his little brother in the vague moonlight shooting through the slits of the motel curtains like alien beams spying on them in the nighttime to see if they were behaving, to see if they could be caught being bad.

“I thought so,” Daniel said flatly, a solemn confirmation of three short words that killed the last of Daniel’s childhood that Sean hoped remained. There was no longer the childlike assumption within that ten-year-old boy of everything being okay, of everyone living a beautiful, untouched life, in a perfectly infinite world. It was those three little words that said all they needed to say to let Sean know that Daniel now understood and expected the worst of life.

The hoping was gone. And it was replaced by the knowing that sometimes…sometimes life was just pain, and that’s all it was. And that pain was sometimes just suffering. And there was no meaning. And everything didn't happen for a reason.

And sometimes…people died. And that was the end.

"They'll be up in Heaven, now," Sean said. "It's okay. They're not in pain anymore."

"Oh, shut up."

"Excuse me?" Sean said, his voice increasing from a whisper at what felt like a slap in the face from Daniel's mouth. "What did you say?"

"Heaven isn't real."

"What...why would you say that?"

"Because I know _you_ don't believe in it. So why should I?"

"Don't talk like that, Daniel. Please."

“Well what am I supposed to do?” Daniel asked, and the tearful quiver of his words was as loud as a gunshot to the head. “Am I supposed to be thankful it was them and not me?”

“Daniel…” Sean said quiet as a whisper, and reached out for his brother to grab his shoulder lightly. “You don’t need to think about that.”

“But I want to.” Daniel shook him off and shifted closer to the edge of the bed. “I can’t stop thinking about it. The whole front of that car was smashed in. Where did they go? Where did their bodies go?”

"Daniel, that isn't something you need to worry about, okay? I don't want you to think about things like that. It doesn't have anything to do with us."

 _"Why not?"_ he said loudly, and Sean cringed at the sound of his brother's voice. _"Why is it not for me to think about? Who says?"_

"Daniel, please, please, we're okay. We don't need to worry about anything but ourselves."

"Stop saying that. Stop telling me what to worry about and what not to. You don't know how it feels like to feel what I do."

"You think I don't?" Sean asked. "We've both gone through the same things...why do you think I don't know?"

"Because you're not me, you're not in my head. You don't know what I think about."

“Daniel, stop,” Sean said firmly, perhaps a bit too loudly for the quieted room they were in with two sleeping people nearby.

“No…” Daniel sat up from where he lay, shaking his head in despondent denial. “I can’t stop. I don’t…I can’t…I don’t know what to do. They’re dead, Sean…they died and we saw it happen.”

From beside them, Sean felt the bed shake suddenly fast and at once the bedside light was clicked on with a plastic snap of the switch.

“What’s wrong?” Finn said frantically, having rushed awake like somebody was robbing them. “What’s going on?”

“Daniel, _please_ ,” Sean begged. “Please, Daniel, stop…”

“I keep thinking about how much it must hurt…” Daniel said, tears now to be seen in the lightened room running down his face. He gritted his teeth violently, his neck stained to reveal a tense anger in the tendons through his skin. “How much pain they might be in…and I hope it wasn’t a lot. I’m so afraid that it was a lot.”

There was a silent shutter of activity throughout the room, a gentle earthquake of motion and emotion rumbling around them as slight shakes of the furniture and lights erupted. Bulbs flickered around them, on and off, on and off. The telephone on the bedside table shook in a plastic-y ring, creeping closer and closer to the edge until it crashed onto the carpeted floor, the phone falling from the receiver and entering a faint beeping sound into the ambiance of the room. 

Sean reached out both hands to place firmly onto Daniel’s shoulders as he cried out into the room heavy with tension. He worried someone might get suspicious and try to come into the room or call the police on them, Daniel’s crying being the siren that warned of their inevitable destruction.

“I feel like something bad is gonna happen to us,” he cried, heaving in and out, so much so that Sean worried that Daniel might make himself pass out. He held his brother’s face with one trembling hand, though the tenderness was not enough to calm the storm. “And I’m so _scared_. Every bad thing that happens around us, it gets closer and closer.”

“What gets closer and closer?” Sean begged, now with both hands on his brother’s face, nearly forcing him to look up. He needed to know in those eyes that Daniel was still there inside.

“And then…then they’ll just leave a cross on the side of the road and that’s it. And everybody will forget about them. Just like…just like…”

And he screamed. He screamed louder than Sean had ever heard anybody scream before. And it felt like hot glass was slicing and cutting and stripping him of his skin, leaving nothing behind except bloody muscle and bone and anger and fucking…fucking Death in its wake. Pictures of barns and waterfalls tore off the walls and smashed onto the brown carpet of the room, lightbulbs exploded in a synchronous symphony of electricity and rage, the bed beneath them shook violently and threatened to slam into the ceiling above and smash them all into blood and tar.

“I beg God every day that Dad will come back!” Daniel bit into his own knuckles in a rage, and Sean reached out to pull his brother’s hands away to stop him. “But he’s not coming back!” Daniel heaved several long, dry breaths in and out of his mouth, between clenched teeth that were sure to draw blood from his lips. He sniffled sharply in an intake of a tearful runny nose. “Nobody listens. I ask God and he’s not there! _I’m screaming and nobody is coming to save me anymore!”_

“I’m here, Daniel,” Sean cooed, though it was strangled and soaked with the rain of his own screaming and having nobody come to save him. “I’m always here for you, Daniel. I’m not going anywhere.”

 _“No!”_ Daniel pushed back with his shoulders against Sean’s hold, though Sean was stronger, and Daniel couldn’t break through the tide that bound him at that moment. _“Get off of me!”_

“I’m not going to,” Sean said, violently shaking his head in denial and furthering the weight of his grasp on his brother, trying to find the exactly far enough push that would steady Daniel.  

“ _I want to be kid again_ , _Sean. I want to go home.”_

“I know you do. I know.”

“No you don’t!” Daniel pushed his head against Sean’s chest, strong with intent but not enough to be hurtful. “You don’t know, Sean. You don’t know anything.” He rolled his shoulders violently in his brother’s grip but couldn’t break free of them. “I don’t want you to tell me that you know. Because you don’t know what it feels like to be me. I don’t want you to tell me you feel the same way. Because YOU DON’T. YOU DON’T.”

"Okay," Sean said tearfully. "Okay, I don't know. I don't. And I'm _so sorry_ that I don't know what it feels like, and that I don't know how to help you. But I don't want you thinking about me not knowing what to do, because I'm supposed to be the strong one. And I'm supposed to be the one who always has all the right answers. But I don't have any of them. And I don't know why dad had to die. And I don't know why those people had to die in that car accident. _I don't know_ , Daniel. I don't know. But please, _please_ , understand that I am doing the best I can with what little I have. I don't know how to be an adult, and I don't want to be one. I just...I just...please understand. I'm just as scared as you are."

“I want dad…" Daniel said, his tone relenting and his breaths slowing. "I want dad… _please_ …I don’t want to do this anymore. Stop trying to make me do this, I can’t, I _can’t_.”

"I can't do it either, Daniel, but we have to do the best we can." Sean held him as close as he could, cradling his brother's head into him and trying to calm himself down in slowed breathing. "There's nothing else we can do except try to be better."

"But I can't...I don't want to." Daniel rubbed his teary eyes into Sean's shirt. "I don't want to be better. I want to go home. _I want to go home."_

"I know..." Sean said, nodding his head against Daniel's, biting into his bottom lip and tasting the coppery metal of the blood that emerged. "I know. I know. I know."

"I want everything to go away," Daniel said. 

Sean looked up at the ceiling and cursed the eyes of God that watched them and did nothing.

_"I know, Daniel...I know."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from Meg Myers' song, _Make a Shadow._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [However Scary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18899920) by [doodlemeimpressed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlemeimpressed/pseuds/doodlemeimpressed)




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